For as long as I can remember, I have always been a fan of boy bands. I grew listening to Boyz II Men and their iconic song A Song for Mama. Then, I became a fan of the Jonas Brothers and by the time I was 11, One Direction came along. One Direction was the first boy band I was a big fan of, I collected all their albums, books, and had a ton of their merch (bags, shirts, notebooks, etc).
So, it’s no surprise that I became a fan of K-pop, Korean pop music. Surprisingly though, the first K-pop star I became a fan of was a girl group, Girls’ Generation, in 2012. Then came BTS, Infinite, and Exo in 2014. Six years later I am now a fan of over 25 different K-pop acts.
Something pretty specific to K-pop is the number of members they have in their groups; Girls’ Generation has 8 members and EXO 9, whereas American groups tend to have 3 to 6 members.
However, one group is surpassing all of them. Neo Culture Technology (NCT). NCT has 23 members ranging from age 26 to 18. Yes, you read that correctly, 23 members. The concept of NCT is to be limitless, to add as many members as possible. All the members will be put in different sub-units that will promote different types of music in different areas of the world. Right now, they have 4 units: NCT U/United, a unit made of any member. The members are chosen based on who fits the concept of the song the best. NCT 127, a-Seoul-based unit made of 10 members (9 active), aims to start in Seoul and become famous around the world. NCT Dream is made up of 7 members and it used to be a unit made of the minors of NCT, each member would “graduate” after turning 18, but they changed it this year and it’s now a fixed unit. WayV, the China-based unit made of 7 members, mainly sings in Chinese and is made up of Chinese members (Hong-Kong, Mainland China, and Macau).
Once in every blue moon (2018 and 2020 so far) all of the NCT units come together and give us a full album and introduce new members. In 2018 two new members were introduced which made NCT an 18 member group and this year 5 more members were introduced, 3 of which were active in WayV but not in NCT.
People often ask me how I can recognize all the members and how I support all 23 of them. The answer is easy, when I started stanning NCT in 2016, after their debut, they didn’t have that many members and because different units promote at different times it’s easy to get familiar with the members. And like I said because they don’t all promote at the same time, I have the time to focus on each unit. To be honest, the main reason I stan them is because the music it’s fantastic. I was hooked from the beginning when they released “The 7th Sense” (one of the best K-pop songs IMO) and for the past 4 years, they’ve been releasing great music so it’s easy for me to stay invested in them.
If you are interested in their music here is the playlist of my favourite song made by NCT, including every unit and solo songs as well. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5K2FF1I6M2Mt1iyVCZAc0i?si=WEY8tFS5S9WQ_LNquU3KLQ