By Karmen Tsai

NCT Dream is the third sub-unit of the Korean Boy band NCT, a group under SM Entertainment. 

Five years after their debut, on May 10 the seven members of NCT Dream, Lee Mark, Huang Renjun, Lee Haechan, Lee Jeno, Na Jaemin, Zhong Chenle, and Park Jisung finally released their first official full-length album, Hot Sauce.

The title track Hot Sauce is a hip-hop inspired song. As the whole concept of the group NCT, revolves around the idea of being experimental, they never fail to impress us by bringing us fresh, catchy, and trendy concepts! The album Hot Sauce showcases all their many talented sides. It really is something worth a listen to. 

The album Hot Sauce includes ten songs: Hot Sauce, Diggity, Dive Into You, My Youth, Rocket, Countdown (3,2,1), ANL, Irreplaceable, Be There For You and Rainbow. All these songs convey their journey and experiences in K-pop, how they all started off as teenagers as young as fourteen, who danced on hoverboards while chewing gum to singing a song about Hot Sauce.

The song Rainbow is one of my favorites and also a favourite of NCT themselves! Kim Doyoung from NCT127 has claimed that this is one of his favorite tracks, as did Chenle. He states that this song is so outstanding due to its melody and the meaning behind the lyrics. As members Jaemin, Jeno, Jisung, and Mark also took part into composing the lyrics, they have split emotions and memories of how far they have come as 7. The 7 expressed their love for this track on Haechan’s Radio; they seem to love “Rainbow” as much as we do! 

After the long-awaited comeback, NCT-zens have been extremely supportive in selling out their albums and streaming. They have won up to eight awards in the Korean music shows: their title track has topped the weekly album charts of May and their MV has surpassed 100 million views in one month. It has become an All-Kill on the Korean streaming site Melon’s Real-Time chart.

In just the first week of pre-ordering, when SM released no information about the concept of the comeback. NCT Dream has received 1,716,571 preorders, earning them the name of the “youngest million sellers.” They not only hold the #1 in the highest pre-orders in SM Entertainment history, but also the most streamed music video released by SM in 24.

It has been officially announced by billboard that “Hot sauce” has been one of the first trilingual songs to hit Global 200 (rank. 51). The song features the languages Spanish, English, and Korean which intrigued lots of new listeners.

The 7 will be releasing their album repacking “Hello Future” along with some new songs on June 28.