Song Review:: Jungwoo (NCT): SUGAR {Debut}

• Release date: 2025 November 28

• Album tracklist: SUGAR

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 Another NCT member debuting as a soloist! How exciting! He's dropping this shortly before his military enlistment begins, where he'll be a part of the band, so at least he gets a little bit of time to enjoy being a soloist before that takes place. That will make all three members of DoJaeJung who will be in the military as fellow subunit member Doyoung will also be enlisting that day, and that will make two of the three in the band. That's pretty cool, you know? And the good news is that even though it's not at the desired three-minute mark, this is close enough.

Most of the song is consistent with some cute little slides predominately in the second half of the song. The start of the past chorus, and some other little points of change provide a welcome shift  There's a smooth lightness to it that reminds me a little bit of butterscotch. I've got kind of an idea about what the choreography could be like, which is actually a good sign for the song because that means the song has a strong visual component even when I'm just listening to it. It's kind of jaunty and I like that.

He's got a lovely voice with a couple of different textures going on. I particularly like it when he kind of flattens it and goes a little lower than the average of the song. That's when his vibrato says hello, and as we all know, I'm kind of in love when the singers use vibrato. We don't get to hear it a ton, but we do hear it frequently enough that it doesn't sound like he's had the vibrato trained out of his voice, but not often enough so that it doesn't sound like it's a large-and-in-charge vibrato. The song doesn't allow him to go big, which is a shame, because I imagine his belts are something to witness.

Oh, he is adorable. And the choreography is as jaunty as I thought it would be, at least the bits we can see. Good news, we actually do get quite a bit of a storyline.