SM Entertainment’s very own contemporary boy band SHINee, is pretty much ready to make their comeback next month. Just a week from Wednesday marks the kick off of SHINee’s highly anticipated return to the music scene. While that date comes, here’s a crash course of what went down in the SHINee World 1 year ago.

In case you didn’t know, SHINee is a contemporary boy band from SM Entertainment. The group consists of Onew (leader), Jonghyun (lead vocals), Minho (rapper), Key (vocals & rapper) and Taemin (vocals & lead dancer). Last year, SHINee had already successfully garnered a large following with their previous albums and single tracks. On May 25, the group made their comeback with their 2nd mini-album, “Romeo.” I’m sure you all remember the vibrant phase SHINee went through last year (see picture above), and their comeback MV to their title song ‘Juliette’ was no different. This song was extra special to the members because SHINee’s lead vocalist Jonghyun co-wrote the song. Re-live your favorite Shakespearean romance with SHINee’s blinged out MV:

It was no surprise that the boys won #1 across the boards, taking home Mutizens and K-chart wins left and right like nothing, but not all was peachy keen. On June 26 2009, while Music Bank was hosting their mid-year special, technical difficulties caused quite a scene. Onew, who had already had a rough day (slipping during SHINee’s Juliette performance) was caught by surprise when a big light fixture started falling down. No one was seriously injured, but the shock from the incident caused Onew to faint. He was quickly hospitalized and was fine by the next week. Hey, I’d probably faint, too…

“Romeo” was only one comeback up SHINee’s tie-dye sleeves. 5 months later, SM Entertainment started releasing teaser pictures of SHINee‘s overhauled image, revealing new looks and surprising hairstyles. Finally, on October 19, the 5 brightly dressed boys pulled a complete 180 with their concept, as well as their music with the release of ‘Ring Ding Dong,’ SHINee adopted a much more darker concept for their 3rd mini album appropriately titled, “2009, Year Of Us.” During this time, several other boy bands were just making their Kpop debut, i.e. MBLAQ and BEAST/B2ST, but they were all blown out of the water the moment SHINee hit the scene with their explosive comeback. Who could have really stood a chance with this video?

They promoted ‘Ring Ding Dong’ til the end of the year, along with JoJo off their 3rd mini-album, scooping up big awards in the process. If you all remember, 2009 was plagued by the Swine Flu. As several idols fell under the furious illness, so did a couple of SHINee members. Jonghyun suffered from the H1N1 first and was absent during promotions. As if one member down wasn’t enough, Onew later caught the virus as well, but in the end everyone successfully recovered and carried on ruling the charts with Ring Ding Dong.

With so many wardrobe changes and hairstyles, plus their innovative musical style, who knows what we’ll see in July when SHINee make their official 2010 comeback. Look out for it very soon!