NCT

The record

NCT #127 is NCT 127’s debut mini album, released on 10 July 2016 with seven tracks. The title track is ‘소방차 (Fire Truck)’, which the label prints as ‘Fire Truck’ outside Korea. The group started as seven: Taeil, Taeyong, Yuta, Jaehyun, Winwin, Mark and Haechan.

SM Entertainment’s album introduction, carried on Bugs, presents the group as the NCT team “based in Seoul, the home of K-pop, and made to work on the world stage”, and says the 127 in the name is Seoul’s line of longitude. The same text describes the title track as a fusion of hip-hop and trap with moombahton rhythm elements, and says Taeyong, Mark and Jaehyun took part in writing the raps themselves. ‘Mad City’ reworks a song the members had performed at the regular shows of SM Rookies, the pre-debut team, and the bonus track ‘Switch (Feat. SR15B)’ was that team’s theme song, by the same text.

Reviews

Idology ran the record as five writers’ short notes in ‘1st Listen’ on 20 July 2016. Kim Yoon-ha wrote that “the title song ‘소방차’ is a fairly striking one”, and that “it carries on the mood of SMP, whose largest single feature is something dark and rebellious, while moving the base from rock to hip-hop with a deftness that is out of the ordinary”. She added that the other tracks “each show their own appeal, along the same colourless line that broke the old frame of the idol as full-spectrum colour”.

Mimyo picked the record as the issue’s ‘Discovery!’. He wrote: “‘소방차’ is a good song. There is almost nothing to add.” He found it “attractive that the hook works as a brake after the song has swept through violently, and that it builds up on a macro scale towards the back half, with the performance in mind”, and read the release as “the work that properly shows what kind of brand NCT is”.

Bluc wrote that “I think it is a successful debut that left a strong impression, and because so open a form of next move is already prepared, what I look forward to is less the musical direction than what they will do next on this footing”. Hamchwa wrote that “the SM-style performance, which feels like an extension of ‘The 7th Sense’, is a pleasure that leaves no room to look away”.

IZM’s Lee Taek-yong wrote about the title track on its own. He described its shape as “a build-up that stacks tension on a bassline recalling Kanye West’s ‘New slave’, and a drop part that eases the heightened mood all at once”, and added that “the work of the producing team LDN Noise, who cast the sleek sound of f(x)’s ‘4 Walls’ and EXO’s ‘Lucky one’, shines again”.

Among the tracks

Of the title track, Lee Taek-yong wrote that “the arrangement is familiar, but a few points of fun found here and there — the ‘what’ that imitates the sound of a fire engine, and Haechan’s timbre standing out inside the members’ well-matched blend — make the song particular”.

‘Mad City’ is the track two writers put forward together. Hamchwa wrote that “the hip-hop colour is strong enough that rap takes a larger place here than in any group SM has debuted, and Mark’s rap on ‘Mad City’ in particular is outstanding enough to make the ears prick up”. Bluc, writing about the title track’s construction, noted that “the rap is written considerably well, which is encouraging”.

Numbers

Idology placed the album first in ‘Best 10 rookie records’ in its 2016 year-end series, published on 21 February 2017, and placed the group third in ‘Ten appealing rookies’ five days earlier, on 16 February. Both pieces say the order came from a vote of twelve writers.

The album introduction for the group’s third mini album, published in June the following year, says that with this debut the group “swept the rookie awards at award shows including the 2016 Mnet Asian Music Awards, the 31st Golden Disc Awards and the 5th Yinyuetai V Chart Awards, taking seven of them”.

Around it

Half a year later the second mini album NCT #127 LIMITLESS arrived, with Johnny and Doyoung added to make nine.