So while Sandra was writing her fav boy group blog post, she was confused about the different NCTs. She’s not the only one though. People who don’t know NCT are always confused about them and their concept. It’s okay though! I am here to clear it all up so you can understand the different NCTs! So get ready, buckle up, get some snackage, take a poo, whatever you need to do because it’s gonna be a long ride for you NCT noobs!
What is an NCT?
Before we begin, let’s get into some NCT background. The group is from SM Entertainment and consists of 4 sub-units and 23 members as of December 2020. NCT stands for Neo Culture Technology and SM’s idea was to make a group with unlimited members who have different sub-units in cities around the world. The members are allowed to leave whenever they want (or so SM says), and new members will continue to be added. This explains why there are so many NCTs.
NCT U
The first unit to debut was the rotational unit, NCT U. They debuted on April 9th, 2016, with the double digital single, “The 7th Sense”, and “Without You”. Now here’s the thing about NCT U, this subunit is basically all the members because the members change for every song, and every NCT member has appeared in an NCT U song. “The 7th Sense” consists of Taeyong, Doyoung, Jaehyun, Ten, and Mark. Meanwhile “Without You,” which came out at the same time, is only Jaehyun, Doyoung, and Taeil (also Kun in the Chinese version). NCT U songs released after 2016 completely changed out the members, like “Baby Don’t Stop”, which was only Ten and Taeyong.
So you can just think of NCT U as the whole of NCT with every song having a different member line up.
NCT 127
The next unit to debut was NCT 127 on July 1, 2016 with “Fire Truck”. This was the first fixed NCT unit, and they are specifically based in Seoul. The 127 is the longitude of Seoul. So technically, 127 shouldn’t be promoting in the U.S. or in Japan like they’ve been doing, since they’re the Seoul-based unit. At least that’s what I think. SM must’ve changed their goal for NCT 127 to target international audiences or something. Anyways, when they debuted, NCT 127 consisted of 7 members: Taeil, Taeyong, Yuta, Jaehyun, Winwin, Mark, and Haechan.
The year after their debut, they added members Johnny and Doyoung for their comeback with “Limitless”. In 2018, they added Jungwoo for their comeback with “Regular”, making the total number of members 10 (IMO they should’ve added Ten instead of Jungwoo but meh). I’m assuming the lineup won’t change anymore since it’s a fixed unit so yeah. The one thing that’s weird is that WinWin has been on hiatus from 127 since “Simon Says”, where he was in the album but didn’t promote it. His hiatus is due to his promotions with WayV, but will SM ever put him back in 127? Stay tuned on Disney Chanyeol.
So there you have it. NCT 127: fixed Seoul unit, 10 members, should’ve added Ten.
NCT Dream
Next we have NCT Dream. Also known as the Dreamies by fans. This unit debuted August 24, 2016, and is made up of all the members who were teens at the time of their debut. Those members would be: Mark, Haechan, Jeno, Jaemin, Renjun, Chenle, and Jisung. This group is another rotational one, except it kinda takes the After School idea of graduating from the group. The members are in the group until they turn 20 Korean age (19 international), which is when they graduate and leave. It’s kinda like a way for the younger members to train I guess. Well…it was. We got through one graduation (Mark’s) and were about to graduate Haechan, Jeno, Jaemin, and Renjun, but the fans fought long and hard to keep the unit fixed, and they did it!
So now, NCT Dream is not a rotational unit, it is another fixed unit, and Mark was even brought back. So BAM! Another fixed unit!
WayV
Next up is WayV! This is the Chinese unit of NCT that debuted January 17th, 2019. The members in this unit are: Kun, Ten, WinWin, Lucas, Xiaojun, Hendery, and YangYang. I thought it was weird that the name of this unit was so different from the others, but I guess they distanced WayV from the rest of NCT because of the tense relations between China and Korea. However, they are indeed part of NCT.
Anyways, they seem to also be a fixed unit. I don’t know much about them other than that…So WayV: fixed China unit, foreign (mostly Chinese) members.
NCT 2018
Ok, so that’s it for the smaller units. Now, we shall talk about the big units. What? Big units you say? Yeah! Apart from the small units, NCT comes together about every 2 years (at least that’s been the pattern so far) and does a full album with all the units. The first time they did this was 2018 where they came together as NCT 2018 and released the Empathy album. The album features songs by all 3 units, with different combinations of NCT U members (like the fabulous TaeTen unit). New members Kun, Lucas, and Junwoo debuted through this album. Kun debuted with the song “Without You” (Chinese version), which came out in 2016, but 2018 was his official debut. Meanwhile, Lucas and Jungwoo both made their debut through “Boss”.
The album also featured the song “Black on Black” which all the members performed, although only three members sang. As for the members of NCT 2018, it consists of all the members who had debuted at the time, as well as new members debuting during this project. So, the NCT 2018 members are: Taeil, Taeyong, Johnny, Yuta, Kun, Doyoung, Ten, Jaehyun, WinWin, Jungwoo, Lucas, Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung. A total of 18 members. Yeah! So that’s it. It’s basically an album with all the units and to show off the whole of NCT.
NCT 2020
Finally, we’ve reached the final unit! NCT 2020. Like NCT 2018, NCT 2020 is a big unit that consists of all the NCT units and members including a few new members. The album released this year was Resonance, which was released in two parts. The members Shotaro and Sungchan debuted through this album, with the songs “Make a Wish”, and “Misfit” (or “90’s Love”, not sure) respectively.
So yes, they did the same thing as with NCT 2018, with the different units getting songs and then having a song with all of them (which is crazy because there are 23 members in NCT 2020). The song they released with all the members this time was “Resonance”, which was a mix of songs from Resonance. This allowed more members to sing compared to “Black on Black” where only like three members got to sing.
The members in this comeback where…get ready…: Taeil, Taeyong, Johnny, Yuta, Kun, Doyoung, Ten, Jaehyun, WinWin, Jungwoo, Lucas, Mark, Xiaojun, Hendery, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, YangYang, Shotaro, Sungchan, Chenle, and Jisung. Yep. That’s NCT 2020.
P.S. the lady with red hair in the pic above is not NCT in case you were wondering…yes.
U know NCT? Yeah, I know NCT!
But Valerie isn’t NCT 2020 basically the same thing as NCT U? No. They’re not. I was confused about this too when NCT 2018 first came out, but it’s easier to understand now that we have NCT 2018 and 2020. So as I said, NCT U consists of all the members of NCT with different members for each song. NCT 2018 and 2020 are part of NCT U, but while NCT U keeps growing forever and ever, NCT 2018 will always be only the 18 members that were around in 2018 while NCT 2020 Will always be only the 23 members that are around right now.
So there it is!! All the stuffs about NCT! The small units are pretty easy once you know their concept. As for the bigger units, they aren’t that hard either once you know which members are in them. I also feel like they’re mostly to show how NCT has grown over the past few years. Not just grown in members but also how their music has changed and how their skills have grown. The full group performances are great because they show off their fabulous synchronized dances and there’s so many members that it’s cool. That is all! Hopefully you know a bit more about the NCT units and their concepts now.
Join us next time where we talk about whatever Benner’s gonna talk about… Valer out!
