NCT

The record

NCT #127 CHERRY BOMB is NCT 127’s third mini album, released on 14 June 2017 with seven tracks. The title track is ‘Cherry Bomb’. It is the second record made as nine, five months after NCT #127 LIMITLESS.

SM Entertainment’s album introduction, carried on Bugs, describes the title track as hip-hop and urban, finished as a collaboration between Dem Jointz, the American producer who has worked with Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna and Dr. Dre, and Deez, a composer signed to SM. The same text says Mark and Taeyong took part in writing five of the seven songs, and that Tony Testa choreographed the performance version, which adds a dance break.

Reviews

Idology ran the record as three writers’ short notes in ‘1st Listen’ on 7 July 2017, and Oyo made it the issue’s ‘Pick!’. He wrote that “‘Cherry Bomb’ is a decent hip-hop track”, and that “the intent was dirt, and although a lot of the rough edges were ground off passing through SM’s K-pop filter, the pleasure of the thud when that bass drop lands is certainly there. This is a kind of sound one experiences quite rarely in K-pop.”

Hamchwa placed the song. He wrote that “on its atmosphere alone, where a heavy beat and a somehow gloomy melody overlap, ‘Cherry Bomb’ is an odd song to make an idol group’s title track”, and that “I do not know how far SM’s insistence on choosing the road that keeps looking difficult will go, but it is also true that from where I listen it gives a fresh pleasure every time”.

Randy, in the same issue, picked the record as its ‘Discovery!’. He wrote that “there is so much detail worth listening for that the song is excellent and interesting as a whole, but if I had to name its best moments they are all Mark’s rap verses”.

Jung Eun-jung of weiv wrote about the album in the ‘Weekly Choice’ column of 1 July 2017. She wrote that “[Cherry Bomb], NCT 127’s third mini album, holds various genres and a sound both varied and solid across seven tracks”, and that the group “is settling into the position of the one at SM that ventures on the newest sound and concept”. She read that quality as a line running “from ‘소방차 (Fire Truck)’ through ‘無限的我’(무한적아;Limitless)’ to ‘Cherry Bomb’”.

Among the tracks

Of the title track, Jung Eun-jung wrote that “it takes as its ground a trap that maximises the weight of the hi-hats and the kick drum”, and that “it hides various sound samples all through the song as devices for turning the mood, and places rap against rap and rap against singing so that the listener witnesses a new scene at every corner”. She added that “Mark in particular expressed the song’s dark, dank mood well with a mechanical, high-toned rap”.

The other six tracks are the ones Hamchwa put forward together. He wrote: “unlike ‘Cherry Bomb’, songs such as ‘0 Mile’ and ‘Sun & Moon’, where you can feel the appeal of the vocal members in full, and songs to enjoy cheerfully like ‘Summer 127’, which suits the summer, fill the record out in balance, so anyone with even a little interest in the group should listen to the whole album.” The album introduction describes ‘0 Mile’ as a song where the main guitar sound meets a bouncing vocal, ‘Sun & Moon’ as electronica drawing a love that cannot be, with the sun and the moon as its material, and ‘Summer 127’ as a summer theme song about a trip to the sea.

Numbers

Idology placed the album tenth in ‘Records to be remembered’ in its 2017 year-end series, published on 2 April 2018. The piece says the category sets the quality of a record aside and asks instead which records the idol scene of 2017 will be remembered by, and that twelve writers voted on the order.

Around it

The first full-length album NCT #127 Regular-Irregular followed in October the next year.