With their high-energy, bass-heavy electronic dance-pop and complex, tightly choreographed dance moves, South Korean boy band SHINee became one of the country's biggest pop acts. They topped the charts at home and in Japan and the U.S. with the hit albums The Misconceptions of Us (2013), Odd (2015), and The Story of Light (2018). After mandatory military service halted their activity at the close of the 2010s, they returned in 2021 with another Korean number one, seventh album Don't Call Me. The group explored genres including but not limited to hip-hop, drum'n'bass, funk, and smooth R&B on 2023's Hard.

Formed by SM Entertainment, SHINee launched in 2008, consisting of singer/dancers Lee "Onew" Jinki, Kim Jonghyun, Kim "Key" Kibum, Choi Minho, and Lee Taemin. Their first mini-album, Replay, went to number eight, and was swiftly followed up by the full-length The Shinee World, which charted at number three and hit number one a few months later when it was re-released in a repackaged edition entitled Amigo. The first single off the album was "Sanso Gateun Neo (Love Like Oxygen)," strangely, a cover of a song originally recorded by Danish X Factor winner Martin Hoberg Hedegaard and entitled "Show the World."

Every one of SHINee's next five releases went to number one in Korea: Amigo and its 2010 follow-up Lucifer (later repackaged as Hello); the 2009 EPs Romeo and 2009, Year of Us, which were also released in Japan, where they performed modestly; and, finally, in 2011 the band performed the expected rite of passage and recorded a Japanese-language album, The First, which gave them a number four hit in that country. They also released a slew of singles there, making Oricon chart history as the first foreign band to have their first three singles enter the chart in the Top Three. That year, the group first tasted global success when they were invited to perform at the sixth London Korean Film Festival. They also performed a gala concert in London, becoming the first Korean band ever to do so; tickets for the event sold out within a minute of going on sale. Their 2012 "comeback" EP, Sherlock, was their first to be digitally released around the world.

In 2013, SHINee issued their third Korean album, Dream Girl, Vol. 1: The Misconceptions of You. Its sibling, Why So Serious?: The Misconceptions of Me, arrived a few months later and topped the Billboard World Albums chart. The pair was later combined as The Misconceptions of Us. That same year, the group also sated Japanese fans with their sophomore LP, Boys Meet U. Before the year ended, SHINee fit in one last release, their fifth EP, Everybody. The year 2014 was relatively quiet by SHINee standards, with just one release: their third Japanese LP, I'm Your Boy. They returned to the Korean market with their fourth album, 2015's ODD, which once again debuted atop the Korean and Billboard World Albums charts. The LP was repackaged months later as Married to the Music. A similar strategy was employed in 2016 as well, with the release of 1 of 1 and 1 and 1, which arrived just one month apart. The group's fourth Japanese album, DxDxD, was also issued that year.

Tragedy struck on December 17, 2017, when Jonghyun died by suicide. A posthumous solo LP, Poet | Artist, was released the following year, as was SHINee's The Story of Light EP, Vol. 1: The 6th Mini Album, which arrived in May 2018 and debuted at number two on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart. Two more volumes in The Story of Light EP series followed that year and featured the singles "I Want You" and "Our Page." In September, SHINee issued The Story of Light: Epilogue, which combined the previous three EPs and added the track "Countless." At the end of 2018, it came time for some of the group's members to enlist in South Korea's mandatory military service, which paused band activity until 2020.

SHINee returned in early 2021 with their seventh set, Don't Call Me, which topped the Korean album chart. They peaked at number two with their next album, 2023's Hard. It found the group stretching stylistically, with jazzy, funky, synthy, and dancey material all in play alongside smooth R&B, hip-hop, and electro-pop. ~ John D. Buchanan & Neil Z. Yeung