Last September, SM Entertainment announced Tiffany of Girls’ Generation would be releasing her debut solo album. Though the initial news was well received, it eventually was swept under other Girls’ Generation endeavors. This includes the promotion of Lion Heart , followed by their fourth concert tour, Girls’ Generation Phantasia . Taeyeon also released her debut solo album in which its featured song “I” was a success. Finally, Tiffany rejoined Taeyeon and Seohyun to bring back TaeTiSeo for their annual Christmas special.
Eventually, tidbits of news would be released throughout 2016 on when Tiffany’s solo album would drop. After many delays since last autumn, we have an official release time frame as SM Entertainment has made it known that Tiffany’s solo album will come out officially in May.
The confirmation was made recently that Stephanie Young Hwang, better known by her stage name in the K-pop girl group Girls’ Generation as Tiffany, will release her solo debut album sometime in the second week of May. According to Korean news outlet Naver , she recently finalized preparations for the album which included filming of the music video for the title track and posing for its photo shoot. All of the promotions were done within a span of three days starting on April 25.
As mentioned earlier, K-pop fans, especially Fanytastic (devoted fans of Tiffany) and Sones (devoted fans of Girls’ Generation), went through a lot pertaining to Tiffany’s solo debut album. Besides all the other promotions listed above possibly forcing SM Entertainment to push back Tiffany’s solo album, Soompi reports there have been numerous conflicting reports on an official release date which in turn caused fans to question if the album would even release at all. Tiffany was also caught in rumors in the production process. There was speculation Tiffany was dating rapper Gray. In reality, Tiffany was only showing up at AOMG, the production house that takes care of Gray, to work on her solo album.
However, there seems to be one rumor that might actually have some truth to it. Earlier this year, it was reported that Jessica Jung, the former member of Girls’ Generation who was supposedly forced out of the K-pop idol group by the other eight members, will be releasing her solo album soon. There was plenty of speculation that SM Entertainment purposely delayed Tiffany’s solo album so it would release around the same time Jessica’s album too.
Apparently, the rumored reason for such a dastardly deed is so that SM Entertainment could “flood” the market with albums from their artists around the same time Jessica’s album drops too. This is mere speculation at this point, but it is quite peculiar the debut solo albums of Tiffany, and possibly fellow Girls’ Generation member Yuri, are releasing around the same time as Jessica. It would be wiser for SM Entertainment to spread solo album releases so promotions for each do not clash.
At this moment, not much is known about Tiffany’s debut solo album. We don’t even know what the featured song will be but only that the music video for it is complete. We do know it will most likely be an extended play ergo a mini-album, but that is about it. Expect more news to come forward on Tiffany’s debut solo album the closer we get to the second week of May.
[Image via SM Entertainment Promotions for Lion Heart ]