Song Review:: Mark (NCT): The Firstfruit- 1999 {Debut}

• Release Date: 2025 April 07

• Album tracklist: Toronto's Window, 1999, Flight to NYC, Righteous, Fraktsiya, Raincouver, Loser, Watching TV, +82 Pressin', 200, Journey Mercies, Mom's Interlude, Too Much

• Album runtime: 36 minutes

 Okay, Mark. We had a trial run for you to get a taste of the solo life accompanied by one of your members so the pressure was off a little. You did very, very well, so let's see how you did with the training wheels taken off. And for the record, I'm very much in support of his decision to Pre-Debut with Haechan so that he can ease into it. After all, it's much easier to put a frog in cold water than it is to put it in boiling water. Although I'd just like to point out that although the runtime seems like it's long, it's slightly longer than 2 minutes per song. But at least the title track for the album and his debut song is a good length, so I'll take it.

So, I'm sure you know by now that I have a slight love affair with strings in K-Pop songs, which is unmatched by just about anything else that could happen unless they go the full orchestra/band route. And I was initially deeply disappointed by the violins in the beginning only to be replaced with a pretty standard hip-hop track. I could also swear that I'm hearing an occasional brass instrument of some sort, but I can't find any evidence for it in the credits, but that wasn't enough for me to be roused out of the ennui that crept up because of those strings. The song even has an organ (played by the keyboard I can almost guarantee it) and gospel sounding background vocals. And I would have been absolutely stoked for them on my first listen if the strings hadn't happened. The saving grace to the song is that the violins do show up again later, which genuinely creates such an interesting contrast to the rapping that I instantly forgave the song for giving me a fake-out like that and now on my second or third listen, this is one of my favorite songs that has been released this year. The reintroduction of the strings actually let me enjoy all the other delicious details added into the song. I probably would have liked the song without the strings eventually (which is why I listen to the songs on repeat) once I got over my disappointment, but I'm over the moon with this instrumental track and I'm kind of sad that we don't have it on its own.

Mark is giving us a little bit of everything in this song. We get some hard rapping. We get some lazy rapping. We get falsetto. We get some random whistling that just makes me smile. We get some full-blown celebration singing. 1999 is a vocal salad that is making one heck of a statement as his debut track vocally, and it's a deeply personal track as well, which just elevates the experience by using the combination of style and lyrics to enhance the story being told. It's 100% a yes from me. Well done, Mark. Well done.

This is a glorious music video. I'm half in love. Also, who is that at 3:14? Is that Johnny? Oh, well. I love the music video. It's a crossover, which is one of my favorite things generally speaking, it's kind of odd, and it's just generally goofy.