To me, it seems clear that NCT, including Dream, is heading to maturity. From Chewing Gum to Boom, they went through a lot and now their music sounds more and more like their seniors in terms of advancement but still keeping their own color.
When you take a track like Boom, released 3 days ago, Contrary to their former tracks, Boom starts with a minimal tone of percussion, less gullible, less colorful. The vibe remains energetic but boldly includes dark synth elements that mainly older bands could have used. As a matter of fact, NCT uniqueness and SME legendary vintage but electronic/futuristic are just effectively blending together to generate a new sound that makes NCT, any sub-unit, noticeable and unique.
The audience will probably keep evolving time passing. Less mainstream, pickier. But NCT counts on quality.
It seems that SME clearly decided to maintain its image of sophisticated - sometimes even dark - vintage high society art provider.
A mix of perfection.
OMG!! this is so true like for chewing gum, my first and last, and we young they combine playful with a pinch of their neo concept as times goes by, when you listen to we go up, drippin, GO and boom it started to feel more powerful until their latest title track Ridin, so excited for their next song to drop (even tho idk when hahaha)
Very true! Their title tracks are showing their mature/rebellious-ish side! Looking at their bsides though, I still see that they have their soft(but not so much bubbly) sounds. Duality :) I think it's great. The colors and tones in their title tracks and also some of their bsides are much less, but they still have that slight energetic somewhat playful vibe compared to their seniors.