While doing research for the H.O.T Project, I started looking into acts SM debuted before H.O.T. One of them was a duo called J'n'J (제이앤제이).
J'n'J is a duo comprised of members Jay Kim (Korean name Kim Ju-Hyeon (김주현)) and Jay Kang (Korean name Kang Jun-Sik (강준식)). Jay Kim was in charge of the instrumental and composition, while Jay Kang did their lyrics.
According to the display in the SM Museum, they debuted in August 1994 with their first and only album Guitar And Dance Single 1 under SM Studios. (NOTE: SM Studios was around from 1989/90 until the company re-established itself as SM Entertainment in 1995.)
(NOTE: They cut off the full album title in this display)
It had 10 tracks -- 3 of which included more English and 2 of which were instrumentals.
J'n'J is mainly known for two songs: 미지수야 미지수 and 노을속에 비친 그대 모습.
"미지수야 미지수" can roughly be translated as "Unknown Unknown" and is an edgy dance track. Their appearance stands out not only due to their outfits, but also because one of them has an electric guitar with him as he dances.
There is a version with English lyrics on their album, however, those lyrics don't match the meaning of the original Korean. (Note: I'm not calling it an English version because it's still mostly in Korean.)
I have yet to find a solid answer as to why this is, but there are a few different music video versions of this song. My personal favorite is the one attributed to MBC that the uploader claims is the first one. It captures the choreo well, has some pretty cool visuals with them performing on an overpass, and is the only one that references the lyrics.
"노을속에 비친 그대 모습" is known as "Your Image in the Sunset" in English. It's a chill song that is a good representative of the sound of that era.
Unfortunately, the duo was only active together for a few months (from what I can tell).
Afterwards, Jay Kim did the composition and arrangement for St.Rookie’s (루키) “숨바꼭질” (1996), he was the mixing engineer for Peter Pan’s 1st album (1998) (Source), he did the composition for Isak N Jiyeon’s “Tell Me Baby” (2002) (Source 1, 2), and appeared on Effie's "Selfish" in 2023. As for Jay Kang, he created the persona Korean Robot (코리안 로봇) that he was active under from roughly 2015-2024 as an EDM DJ. In 2023, he released 3 singles: "주님의 위대하심 나 찬양해 - Draft 2023", "主の偉大さを賛美する", and "왕이신 나의 주님 (시편 145)".
So, how does this connect to H.O.T?
Jay Kim and Jay Kang were involved with H.O.T's first album We Hate All Kinds of Violence. "미지수야 미지수" was remade by the junior group and renamed to "About여자 (About Women)". "노을속에 비친 그대 모습 (Your Image in the Sunset)" was also a remake, but got to keep its original name.
As I was unable to find a full audio version of J'n'J's album online, I'm unsure if the two other songs they made for H.O.T were also J'n'J remakes. The two songs in question are "개성시대 (The Era of Individuality)" and "오늘도짜증나는날이네". (Note: There are a few different common translations for 오늘도짜증나는날이네, such as "The Cranky Day". Personally, I prefer "Another Stressful Day", as that is the one I commonly saw up until a few years ago.) If these tracks were originally on J'n'J's album or were meant for them, that would make a lot of sense considering the lyrics, so I'm hoping that's the case.
In 2018, J'n'J reunited to re-release "Your Image in the Sunset" with updated vocals and instrumentals. The instrumental is a bit different and strongly reminds me of the theme from GTA: San Andreas.
However, the release of this single is strongly controversial. It was attributed to H.O.T as a celebration of their reunion and used their name and logo on the album cover.
It was condemned by Korean H.O.T fans because 1. “Your Image In the Sunset” was J’n’J’s song first and the use of the name/logo seemed to be piggybacking off of the more-famous group's recent resurgence in relevance/popularity. 2. Its timing was in bad taste considering the trademark dispute at the time forced H.O.T to refer to themselves as their full name (High-Five of Teenagers) and they used the blacked-out outline of their logo. The dispute ultimately resulted in the rights later being returned to H.O.T (after having been taken from them in 1998 by the then-SM CEO). So, J’n’J using it for this single wasn't a great choice, even if it was (as they claimed to be) a respectful gesture from a senior act to their juniors.
All in all, J'n'J is a fascinating note in the history of SM and H.O.T. If you're interested in hearing more about them, I'm linking a document of my notes with sources that I've gathered. I'll update it as I find out more.
Basic Info Name stylized as J’n’J, J&J Hangul: 제이앤제이 Members: Jay Kim, Jay Kang Active Time: 1994 (possibly August - October 1994) Links One
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