CNBLUE

They debuted in Japan in 2009 with an independently released mini-album, Now or Never. The album failed to chart, but the band picked up some fans who were already aware of frontman Jung Yong-Hwa through his acting role -- playing a boy band member, no less -- in the TV mini-series You’re Beautiful. After another mini-album, the band returned to Korea, where they were an instant smash hit, with their debut single "I'm a Loner" going straight into the charts at number two. Two hugely successful Korean mini-albums later, the band went back to Japan, where they then cracked the charts, presumably with the aid of fans who had followed their Korean successes, and landed a major-label deal with Warner Music. There is a big tradition of clever cross-marketing in East Asian pop, and this strategy really fueled the band's career, as it had for so many others; their success in one country fed their success in the other, and every time they went back and forth, they had a readymade stream of hits where all they had to do was re-record the vocals in the other language.

From 🇰🇷 South Korea