NCT - NCT Dream, WayV and future activities

K-Pop Blog > Artists > NCT / NCT Dream / WayV

Welcome back! In our last article "NCT - The origin: NCT U & NCT 127" we told you how the biggest K-Pop band in the world was created. We also introduced you to two of the four sub-units: "NCT U" and "NCT127".

Today, we would like to continue the story and take a look at the other two units: "NCT Dream" and "WayV".

NCT Dream

The boy group NCT made its official debut with the first sub-unit "NCT U" in April 2016, followed by the second unit "NCT 127" in July and "NCT Dream" in August. So three of the four currently existing sub-units were already founded in 2016!

NCT Dream consisted of seven members then as now: Mark, Haechan, Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung. Mark has previously debuted in NCT U and NCT 127, and Haechan is also already known to fans through NCT 127.

NCT Dream debuted with the single "Chewing Gum" on August 24, 2016, and Chewing Gum is also included on their first single album "The First," which was released in February 2017. Jaemin was unfortunately not involved in the album due to an injury. At least fans could hear his voice in at least one song on the album thanks to Chewing Gum. On February 14, five days after the album's release, NCT Dream became the first unit of NCT to win in a music show!

Almost exactly a month later, on March 15, the unit released the song "Trigger the Fever" for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup. This was hosted by South Korea that year and NCT Dream was named an ambassador! The Unit performed the song at the opening ceremony, among other events.

"Trigger the Fever" is also included as a bonus track on the next album "We Young", which was released in August. Unfortunately, Jaemin was once again absent. The Christmas single "Joy" was also recorded without him.

Accordingly, the joy was great when Jaemin returned after a year's break for the project album "NCT 2018 Empathy" in March! Subsequently, fans had to wait six months, but in September 2018 it was finally time. NCT Dream released "We Go Up", their first album as a seven piece! The album reached number five on the Billboard World Albums chart and topped the iTunes chart in 15 countries!

However, the first album of seven was also the last for the time being: NCT Dream had a youthful image from the beginning. The plan was that members who had reached their 19th birthday would leave the unit and "graduate." New, young members would move up, so NCT Dream would forever remain the "Teen Unit." Accordingly, before "We Go Up," it was announced that Mark would leave the Unit after the album. On December 27, the single "Candle Light" was released. It was written by Mark and served as a kind of farewell song.

In June 2019, NCT Dream collaborated with English singer "HRVY" for the single "Don't Need Your Love." It was the first release without Mark. In fact, only five members of NCT Dream were involved because Haechan was active with NCT 127 at the time.

At the end of July, the new album "We Boom" was released with six members including Haechan. This was followed by the Japanese album "The Dream" in January 2020, which consisted of all previously released Korean singles. The songs were left in the original Korean language even though it was a Japanese album. Nevertheless, it was well received in Japan and topped the Oricon album charts!

On April 14, 2020, SM Entertainment announced that NCT Dream would release an album titled "Reload" later that month. But that wasn't all! The agency also announced that the graduation system would be abolished. Accordingly, no member will leave the unit anymore and Mark, who graduated at the end of 2018, is to return to NCT Dream! In the future, the team is also expected to try many different concepts similar to NCT U.

The joy of the fans was naturally great, because the Unit had grown close to the hearts of many of them. Possibly this joy had an effect on the desire to buy, because Reload was pre-ordered as often as no album of the Unit before. Over 500,000 times!

At the end of the year all units came for the second project album "NCT Resonance Pt. 1" and the repackage "Resonance Pt.2". The album contains, among other things, the single "Déjà Vu" by NCT Dream, on which all seven members, including Mark, were involved!

Then in May 2021 fans could finally enjoy a new NCT Dream album with Mark! "Hot Sauce" is only the second album with seven members after "We Go Up" in September 2018! It was pre-ordered over 1,700,000 times, surpassing the record of Reload by more than three times! With this, the fans had made it impressively clear that they prefer to see the Unit as Seven. As if to thank them for their support, NCT Dream released a repackage album called "Hello Future" a month later.

We are already looking forward to the new year with the Unit and many more albums together!

NCT Dream Discography

WayV

WayV is the fourth and so far last sub-unit of NCT. It was promoted from the beginning as a fixed Unit, almost like a separate Chinese boy band. That means, unlike other units, members are neither added nor changed. So WayV consists of seven fixed members: Ten, Winwin, Kun, Lucas, Xiaojun, Hendery and Yangyang.

Four of the members are already known from previous activities in NCT. Ten debuted in NCT U in 2016, Winwin is a member of NCT 127, and Kun and Lucas participated in the project album "NCT 2018 Empathy." Xiaojun, Hendery and Yangyang joined as brand new members.

Yangyang grew up in Düsseldorf and therefore speaks German in some videos! Sometimes he also teaches German words to the other members of WayV with more or less success.