Song Review:: NCT Wish (NCT): Ode to Love- Ode to Love

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  • Release date: 2026 April 20
  • Album tracklist: 2.0 (TWO POINT O), Ode to Love, Sticky, Feel The Beat, Crush, Street (2AM), Glow Up, Everglow, Don't Say You Love Me, Voyage
  • Album runtime: 30 minutes

 Congrats on the first full album! Title track over three minutes? Check! Average runtime over three minutes? Check! Maknae who is eighteen? Check! I am a happy fangirl for this moment. 

This is a pretty mild instrumental, more so than I was expecting. We've got the skittering beat that usually promises high danceability, but combined with the relatively low BPM (I've only just now realized that what I consider a low BPM is actually pretty fast because this feels like it's in the low 130s, so ignore me on that point), it allows the song to to translate its softness to lightness. We don't have any big bursts of drama with the instrumental, though we do have a softening dip that allows there to be a good contrast of energy with the song at equilibrium. It's nice. This will be a good end of concert song for them.

I do really like this subunit. So, interestingly, this song opens and closes the exact same way, which could provide something of a frame narrative for the song and I appreciate that a lot. We don't get nearly as much rapping as I thought we would have gotten, but this is a pretty soft song and not one that makes a lot of vocal waves. Which means that that rapping section is vital for the song's level of variation. 

Ah, white and pastels. It's a little bit of an odd music video, which I'm not complaining about because I really do love ones like that, but it's as soft as the song itself is, so they did a great job with pairing aesthetics with the sound of the song. 



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