J

The record

J is Jaehyun’s first full-length album, released on 26 August 2024 with eight tracks. The title track is ‘Smoke’, and the last track is the English version of the same song.

The album introduction on Bugs states that he took part in the writing and composing, and shaped the direction of the work and its title himself: he writes the initial ‘J’ on his own things, and the album carries the name to say that it is the record most his own. The same text describes ‘Smoke’ as a hip-hop R&B track joining a soft vocal to a flow that runs against it, with lyrics that liken time spent in a car with someone he loves to smoke rising over a boombox. Jaehyun is quoted there saying the album “should be good to listen to from the late afternoon when the sunset begins until the dawn just before sunrise”.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) put the album on its 16 best albums of 2024, published on 28 February 2025. Mano wrote that it defies the guess that it would extend the digital singles that came before it, and that “it takes a mood and a genre quite unlike the discography until now, and it not only sits very well with the artist’s own smoky timbre but also gives the impression of fitting his particular character”. He picked the way the whole record is threaded together as the thing most worth noting: “giving it unity and coherence through R&B and hip-hop while still supplying proper points of difference and turns that are never forced, he filled the running time of some 25 minutes without a dull moment.” He closed: “That is why one dares to look forward to his return.”

Tamar Herman of NME read the album, in her review of 28 August 2024, as the place where Jaehyun puts his voice in front of a record about love. She wrote that on it “the NCT singer spends most of its length submerged in impassioned R&B, revelling in his multifaceted voice, never shying away from falsettos or weaving his lower registers into layered harmonies, while navigating through the ups and downs of romance”. She noted that his fingerprints are all over the record, with writing credits on a majority of the tracks and a couple of production assists.

Among the tracks

Herman picked ‘Roses’ as the record’s standout, writing that “the dark, moody ‘Roses’ is a standout showcase of the singer’s artistry and sonic identity” and that “the freefall of a lost love is relayed through Jaehyun’s mournful verses”, with an echoing choral backing enlarging the chorus. Of the title track she wrote: “Album opener and lead single ‘Smoke’, meanwhile, is a sensual ode to a lingering romance, slinking through a smooth, aura soundscape.” His rich vocals, she added, weave in and out of harmonies “over snapping beats, bold bass and groovy, fingerpicked strings”.

She read the album as coming alive when it opens onto a lighter and more earnest view of love, calling ‘Flamin’ Hot Lemon’ “sexy and playful” and writing that “Jaehyun continues to ride this vibrant and bouncy vibe on ‘Dandelion’ and ‘Easy’, which are as charming as they are easy on the ears”. Of the closer ‘Can’t Get You’, co-written by Babyface, she wrote that it “turns from a simple jazzy slow jam into a full orchestral arrangement, with hypnotising synths and dramatic backing vocals bolstering Jaehyun’s profession of love”.

Mano wrote of the figures Jaehyun changes into across the record: “from the sensual grown man dancing as if gliding over a groove-led rhythm (‘Smoke’) to the innocent boy singing jazzy harmony (‘Dandelion’), the ease with which he plays each of them, as though changing clothes, lets one feel the years he has put in.”

Around it

Idology chose the video for ‘Smoke’ in its year-end music-video picks for 2024, published the same day. Jo Eun-jae wrote that “Jaehyun, R&B and a screen full of Gondry-like imagination look as though they should not go together, and fit exactly”. The video went up on the official SMTOWN channel on the day of release.

The single ‘Unconditional’ followed two months later, and the next single, ‘99 Degrees’, came in July 2026.