On August 24th, The K-Pop boy group NCT Dream celebrated their sixth anniversary. It was a fun night of talking with fans, recreating old photos, and revisiting all the memories from the past six years. So, let’s go over NCT Dream’s history from start to now to show how big they’ve gotten.
On August 24th, 2016, NCT Dream debuted with the title track “Chewing Gum” with members Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung. NCT Dream is a subunit of the group NCT, established under the company, SM Entertainment.
NCT Dream was originally under a graduation system, where the members would “graduate” from the group once they became legal adults, as they were all teenagers at the time.
On February 2nd, 2017, Jaemin was placed on hiatus for the rest of the year. As a result, the group was promoted as six for the following comebacks, “My First and Last” released on February 8th, and “We Young” released on August 17th.
On March 4th, 2018, as part of NCT 2018, where all units of NCT participated in one unit, NCT Dream released “GO”, where Jaemin returned from his hiatus and began promoting again. Unfortunately, the leader, Mark, turned legal age in South Korea, marking his last year in NCT Dream.
“We Go Up”, which was released on August 30th, 2018, with a mini album of the same title, was the last comeback featuring Mark. The track “Dear Dream” is dedicated to Mark, as well as the others reminiscing about the years together.
From September 28th to December 5th, the group held the “NCT Dream Show”, where Mark said his final words as the leader of NCT Dream. On December 27, they released the single “Candle Light” for SM Station, the last song with all original seven members before Mark graduated on December 31st.
In 2019, the group proceeded with the remaining six members. They released a collaboration with English singer HRVY called “Don’t Need Your Love” on June 6th. NCT Dream also released their English-language single “Fireflies”, after being named the first global ambassadors of the World Scout Foundation in July. Also, in July, NCT Dream released their third EP, with the title track “Boom”.
Another achievement was their first international concert-show, The Dream Show, which took place from November to December. This was a very pressing time as members Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, and Jaemin were presumed to be graduating that year as they had turned legal age. Luckily, SM Entertainment thought otherwise.
With the announcement of NCT Dream’s fourth Korean EP, Reload, the graduation system would be abolished and Mark would be returning as a member of NCT Dream, with the group staying a fixed unit.
While the group promoted the title track, “Ridin”, without Mark, the group joined the rest of NCT under the name NCT 2020, working on NCT 2020 Resonance album, and performed the song “Déjà Vu”, which was Mark’s first release with NCT Dream since the reorganization.
On May 10th, 2021, with all the members now legal adults, NCT Dream released their first studio album Hot Sauce, with a title track of the same name. Preorders for the albums surpassed 1.7 million copies, earning the title of “double million sellers” on May 26th as they sold over two million copies.
A month later, on June 28, they released a repackage album called Hello Future, which had three new tracks. With the new album, the group was called a “triple million seller”, as the combined sales of Hot Sauce and Hello Future surpassed three million copies.
On February 28th of this year, NCT Dream released their second studio album, Glitch Mode, with the title song of the same name. Preorders surpassed two million on the day of release, with record sales of over two million within one week. The repackage album, Beatbox was released on May 30, with the title song of the same name.
At the time of writing this, NCT Dream will be set to perform The Dream Show 2: In A Dream on September 8th and 9th at Jamsil Olympic Stadium, which is the largest stadium in South Korea. Only seven idols have performed at Jamsil Olympic Stadium, H.O.T, G.O.D, Shinhwa, JYJ, EXO, and BTS.
As someone who has been with the group since their debut and is the same age as the youngest member, Jisung born in 2002, I feel like I’ve grown up with them. I feel proud of how much they’ve grown and matured. I know they’ll only keep on growing and get bigger than ever and I’m glad that I get to see the journey.
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