Song Review:: NCT Wish: Steady- Dunk Shot {Pre-Release}

• Release date: 2024 September 24

• Album tracklist: Steady, 3 Minutes, Dunk Shot, On & On, Supercute, Skate, Hands Up - Korean Version

• Album runtime: 21 minutes

I'm not generally a huge fan of the NCT subunits. I like Dream and WayV the best, but even then, they're not groups I would stress out to pre-order tickets for. It's the perceived shouting thing. So I have to admit, I haven't paid much attention to this one other than the general pride I feel when a younger sibling group to one I do like debuts. Not that this is a debut, but I think it'll be my first listen to one of their songs.

This reminds me of a hip hop version of High School Musical, which makes me laugh a little bit. But there's also an industrial grind to the bass accompanying the electric guitar and the synth. Ah, that's kind of funny to picture. Industrial High School Musical. Troy Bolton and the Wildcats shooting a music video in a construction zone. The beat isn't particularly fast, either. It actually might work to bounce a basketball to, which is also kind of funny to me. 

The chanting during the refrain is very sports-like. It's been a while since I've been to a sporting event that actually uses them, as tennis is primarily a quiet affair, and screaming seems to be the national past-time of American Football fans, which is the other sport I keep up to date on. I can totally see myself singing along to this in the car while on a road trip. I really like the chorus and I don't think it would be too difficult to learn. I expect SM to produce idols that have good voices. They have a track record. Well, they have more than one, and I feel bad for these guys if their past reputation for older gen idols is still accurate. So I'm not surprised that they sound like they have good voices. I'm curious to see what they sound like when they get let loose, though. They feel a little restrained by the genre of Dunk Shot. But, it doesn't change that I'm liking what I hear, and it feels like a full song even though it's shorter than three minutes.

Y'all, even the music video reminds of Hip Hop High School Musical. And as the jock of my friend group, I was having some flashbacks watching them workout like that in the music video. Running the bleachers in high school in 110+ degree heat gave me some trauma. Luckily for the members, the green grass indicates they did not have to do that in the same conditions. If this had come out when I was in high school (and had I been listening to K-Pop because, referring to the fifteen page backstory post, that wasn't what I was doing, but that was when Gangnam Style gloriously invaded), this would have been added to my pre-game pump up playlist. Did I play basketball? No. I play tennis, but while I was captain of the team, we did stranger things. And I really like the music video here because it reminds me of high school, which were good memories for me. 

For the high school jocks out there, this song is for you.