Gee (Girls' Generation song)

"Gee" is a song by South Korean girl group Girls' Generation, who originally recorded a Korean-language version for an extended play (EP) that was released in South Korea by SM Entertainment on January 5, 2009. Nayutawave Records released a Japanese-language version of "Gee" on October 20, 2010, as the group's second single in Japan. Music duo E-Tribe wrote and produced the track, and Kanata Nakamura wrote additional Japanese lyrics.

"Gee" is primarily a bubblegum track with an electropop and Europop sound brought by prominent techno- and hip hop-influenced synthesizers and beats. The lyrics are about first love from a young female perspective. The song was supported by a music video depicting the group members as mannequins who, after the shop owner leaves, come to life and perform the choreography in colored skinny jeans. It became the first girl-group video to amass 100 million views on YouTube.

In South Korea, "Gee" was the number-one song on the music program Music Bank for nine consecutive weeks in 2009 and the top-performing song of the 2000s decade on the digital music platform Melon. According to a 2009 poll by Gallup Korea, it was the year's most popular song. In Japan, it peaked at number two on the Oricon Singles Chart and number one on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, and the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) certified that it sold over one million digital copies.

"Gee" won Song of the Year at the Melon Music Awards and Korean Music Awards, and it won Digital Daesang at the 24th Golden Disc Awards in 2009. Music critics have recognized "Gee" as a K-pop standard that helped shape the contemporary bubblegum sound and attributed its popularity in part to the music video. The song ranked first on Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the 100 Greatest Songs in the History of Korean Pop Music.

Background and release
South Korean entertainment agency SM Entertainment launched Girls' Generation, a nine-member idol girl group, in August 2007. In November, SM released the group's debut studio album, which was supported by singles including "Into the New World" and "Girls' Generation"; the latter of which was among the top three most popular songs of 2007 according to a Gallup Korea public poll. The album was succeeded with a reissue titled Baby Baby in March 2008. Girls' Generation sold over 100,000 copies of their debut album in South Korea and became one of the rising idol groups with strong albums sales.

On January 5, 2009, SM released Gee, the group's first extended play (EP) (known in South Korea as "mini album"). SM had planned to release "Dancing Queen", a cover version of Duffy's single "Mercy (2008), as the title track. The plan was inspired by the "retro" music trend caused by fellow idol group Wonder Girls' hit single "Nobody" (2008). It was scrapped due to copyright issues. Production duo E-Tribe, who wrote "Gee", pitched the song to SM, who thought the lyrics were childish and the melody weak. E-Tribe stood their ground and SM ultimately decided on "Gee" as the title track. It was released as the lead single onto South Korean digital music platforms.

After Girls' Generation's domestic success, SM extended their promotional activities to Japan. In September 2010, the group signed with Universal Music Japan-owned Nayutawave Records. Their first Japanese single was the Japanese-language version of "Genie", which had been released in South Korea prior. Nayutawave released the Japanese-language version of "Gee" on October 20, 2010, as the group's second Japanese single.

Music and lyrics
"Gee" was written, arranged, and produced by E-Tribe, a production duo consisting of Ahn Myung-won and Kim Young-deuk. It was recorded at SM's Concert Hall and Yellow Tail Studios in Seoul, South Korea. The track is three minutes and 21 seconds long. The Japanese version's lyrics were written by Kanata Nakamura.

"Gee" is an upbeat track that uses dense synthesizers. Rolling Stone described the synthesizers as "glittering Shibuya-kei", and Billboard found them to be influenced by techno. The track is accentuated with chimes at the beginning and pulsing electropop beats throughout. Music critics categorized the sound as bubblegum, Europop, and electropop. The A.V. Club characterized the track as "a three-minute aural mélange of techno, bubblegum pop, and hip-hop". The group members sing in high-registered vocals accentuated with electronic processing including bleeps and clicks. According to musicologist Michael Fuhr, this vocal technique demonstrates aegyo, a Korean concept for cuteness in an adolescent, feminine way. The lyrics talk about the girls' feelings when they fall in love.

Music video
The music video for the Korean version of "Gee" begins with the nine members being displayed as mannequins at a clothing store and coming to life after the store's male staff (played by Minho of Shinee) leaves. The members then discover the surroundings and find out the portrait of Minho being "the employee of the month". Scenes of the members performing the choreography are juxtaposed with the storyline. At the end of the video, the members leave the store and Minho returns realizing the mannequins have disappeared. The video became the first video by a girl group to achieve over 100 million views on YouTube. Another music video for the Japanese version was also released, which also features Minho as the male staff, but does not portray the members as mannequins but Minho's fellow female staff.

Reception
Girls' Generation had their first promotional activity for the song on the MBC's music show Music Core on January 10. "Gee" eventually became a hit, achieving nine consecutive top one on the KBS's Music Bank, and eight consecutive wins on the Mnet's chart, setting a record at the time. It was named as the Song of the Decade by South Korea's online music website Melon, and chosen to be the most popular song of 2009 on Music Bank. The song has also won several major awards such as Digital Daesang and Digital Bonsang at the 24th Golden Disc Awards, the Daesang and Digital Music awards at the 19th Seoul Music Awards, and Song of the Year at the 7th Korean Music Awards.

The Japanese version sold 130,145 physical copies in 2010, becoming the 49$th$ best-selling single of the year in Japan. The song reached number one on the RIAJ's weekly digital track chart on October 26, and eventually was ranked fifty-seventh and twenty-third on Billboard's 2010 & 2011 Japan Hot 100 charts, respectively. In January 2014, "Gee" was certified "Million" by the RIAJ, achieving more than one million digital downloads. The song is also the group's best-selling single in the US with 80,000 downloads sold as of May 2020.

Accolades
"Gee" won 14 first place music program awards in South Korea, and received a record nine consecutive wins on Music Bank until Psy's "Gangnam Style" in 2012.

In popular culture
A parody of "Gee", called "Hee", has gained popularity among Korean citizens. It is a combination of the instrumental of "Gee" and some extremely venomous dialogue from the drama Temptation of Wife. A viral video named Showa Era Gee (Grandpa Showa era) (Gee しょうわ時代 （爺爺爺－昭和時代))) was posted on YouTube on August 15, 2011, featuring elderly men in a shoe shop dancing to the Japanese version of "Gee". The video was originally on SMAPxSMAP Japanese show. It was also posted on Smosh website and was reviewed by "AtomicMari" on "Smosh Pit Weekly".

In 2009 and 2010, SM labelmates Super Junior regularly included a cover of "Gee" in their setlist for Super Show 2. The performance was preceded by a video interlude entitled The Secret of "Gee" including Jessica and Tiffany respectively dancing Heechul's and Kangin's parts in "Sorry, Sorry" during a Girls' Generation dance practice before the practice is infiltrated as a prank by Heechul, Kangin, Leeteuk and Sungmin respectively disguised as Jessica, Tiffany, Taeyeon and Sunny. "Gee" was the opening theme song of the film "To All the Boys: Always and Forever".

Legacy


"Gee" has been widely recognized as a K-pop classic and the group's signature song. On writing the group's biography for AllMusic, Chris True selected "Gee" as one of their outstanding songs. Chuck Eddy from Spin ranked the single fifth on his list of the 21 greatest K-pop songs of all time in 2012, opining that the song has set up the group's "huge deals" ever since. Pitchfork Media editor Jakob Dorof included the song on his list of 20 essential K-pop songs in 2014, noting it for being the "magnum opus" of modern Korean bubblegum pop genre, which he regarded as K-pop's "comfort zone." He further recognized the "formally irrefutable" song as overcoming half a millennium of historical animosity to broker pop cultural peace between South Korea and Japan for only one year. Abigail Covington writing for The A.V. Club regarded Girls' Generation as the K-pop "premier, ubiquitous provider," particularly with "Gee", which helped to promote Korean music's full potential despite the fact that K-pop had existed long before the group's debut in 2007. Billboard magazine labelled "Gee" "arguably the most iconic K-pop song in the past ten years."

In 2016, "Gee" was voted the top K-pop girl group song in the past 20 years in a poll involving 2,000 people and 30 music industry experts by South Korean magazine Dong-a Ilbo, web magazine Idology and research company M Brain. In a panel of 35 music critics and industry professionals organized by Melon and newspaper Seoul Shinmun, "Gee" was ranked the fifth best idol song of all-time, crediting the song as one of the catalysts of the popularization of idol/K-pop. Music critic Jiseon Choi believed that "through the rise of 'Gee', the year 2009 was heated up and became the protagonist of a nationwide syndrome." In 2023, Rolling Stone named "Gee" the greatest song in the history of Korean pop music, referring to it as "a pure distillation of the giddiness of infatuation".

Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from album's liner notes.

Studio
 * SM Concert Hall Studio – recording, mixing
 * SM Yellow Tail Studio – recording
 * Sonic Korea – mastering

Personnel
 * SM Entertainment – executive producer
 * Lee Soo-man – producer
 * Girls' Generation – vocals, background vocals
 * E-Tribe – producer, Korean lyrics, composition, arrangement, vocal directing
 * Kanata Nakamura – Japanese lyrics
 * Sugarflow – background vocals
 * Go Myung-jae – guitar
 * Nam Koong-jin – recording, mixing
 * Lee Seong-ho – recording
 * Jeon Hoon – mastering