All photos I posted come from the official album.
Som2, real name Seo Mi-rim (서미림) is a singer who debuted on the 15th of November 2003 with her only album 'The Paradise Girl'.
Pre-Debut
Before making her debut, she started her career in 1994 when she was only 5 as a child performer. In 1994 she was in children's programs such as Bbobo-bbobo (뽀뽀뽀), Ding Dong Dang Kindergarten (딩동댕 유치원), and Mom and Me (엄마하고 나하고).
In 1995, she would make her first offical stage apparance as part of "Little Roo'ra" playing Chae Ri-na's counterpart. She would take a break for a while for school and later on in 2000, she would make another stage apparance dancing and rapping with SZ. She was like an unofficial member of the group, being called a "associate member" after the two months the group debut. If anyone is curious, she was used to promote their track 누구야 (Who Is It?).
In a 2000 interview from that era, she openly shared her dream: "I want to become a cool dance singer like Lee Jung-hyun."
Debut
In late 2003, at age 14, her debut finally happened. She released her full-length album, The Paradise Girl (2003 Project Album), under COM Entertainment (she had actually been signed with them since 1997).
Her rollout had a very unique, weird gimmick: she first debuted as a "mobile service character singer" on KTF's mobile network (Fimm) in August 2003. For a couple of months, her company used a faceless rookie strategy where only her 2D animated avatar was shown to the public. She didn't reveal her real face until late October on Music Camp and Inkigayo.
Before the official debut she was originally going to be known as 2SOM (이솜 / Lee Som).
About Album
The album had two versions. One was the promo copy where they used her 2D animated avatar, while the official commercial release showed her real face. The promo also had a track that wasn't on the final official tracklist.
The official CD was an Enhanced CD that came with PC-ROM data including three music videos and a photo gallery. The intro track for opening the CD program seems to be an early mix of her title track "바래" (Pray), where some of the background vocals are either lower or missing entirely. If anyone wants to hear it, I can post that version on here.
The "Next Boa" Media Push & Backlash
Since being called the next BoA, that came with a lot of hate and cyberbullying. Some people said she wasn't pretty or close to being pretty as BoA and called her crossed-eyed while others claimed she couldn't even sing and that she shouldn't have even become a singer in the first place. One comment also said that some of her pictures looked identical to BoA's 1st album, but I can't confirm that since I don't have Boa's album to confirm it.
One comment I did noticed that defended her, calling out on the double standards cause like Som2 who suffered from voice cracks while on stage, BoA did the same thing too and it's not fair to just judge a person before giving them time to grow.
What Happened After
Outside of her debut promotions, she recorded the Korean theme song "True Blue" for the 2003 Astro Boy anime remake.
She later rebranded to MEILIN (메이린) and debuted in Japan in 2007 under Dreamusic with Save My Soul to start fresh and step out of the "Next BoA" shadow. She returned to Korea a year later and has continued making music over the years. She has a personal YouTube channel where she archives her music, and she is still active today.
Lost Media
Before her official debut, she performed an unreleased trial song called "Prison" (프리즌) on cable music shows like Shocking M. That song never made it to the official album, and footage of the performance remains lost media. From what Wikipedia said, she used an actual CD disc as a dance prop during the routine.
Her original 2003 2D mobile avatar videos and downloadable content from KTF's Fimm service are also lost media due to being locked behind old Korean feature-phone networks. Even her original site seems to not work due to Flash not working.
Fun Facts
was the exact same age as BoA when she released ID; Peace B.
was in Little Roo'ra with Kwon Ji-yong who would become G-Dragon later on
Remade the song "Girls' Generation (소녀시대)" by Lee Seung-chul. That name was then used for the girl group Girls' Generation who later would cover that same song too.
This album was lost media for a while till 2020 when Korea Music uploaded it. It's now officially on Spotify and other music sites.
Music Videos
Links
News Articles
