However, I am aware of what goes on in the Korean entertainment industry through allkpop. And in their article that talks about SM Entertainment's new boy group project NCT, they explain how the group is made so that members can divide up into subgroups and so that members can always be added or changed. There's currently 40 members in NCT! And rumor has it that this new system will be effective and that NCT will revolutionize the K-pop industry. So at the end of the article they ask readers if they too think that NCT will have such an impact in K-pop.
So what do I think? I think no.
I make myself clear again that I'm no expert on the K-pop world nowadays. This also means I don't know any of the members in this new boy group project, let alone any of their songs.
This concept of a "boy group project" feels foreign to me, though I know what it is. Red Velvet, SM's latest and much adored girl group, also publicized themselves through SM Rookies before they officially debuted under the name of Red Velvet. So really SM Rookies and this boy group project is debuting... but not officially. It's confusing. But the point of this is to ensure the public knows and becomes familiar with these faces before they officially debut. It may be confusing but it's yet again a genius move on SM's part.
Going back to my answer - I don't think NCT will "revolutionize" K-pop because first off, there are too many members. I don't know about anyone else but once I take interest in a new idol group, I go through the tedious process of learning each member's names and keeping track of the individuals. The key word here is tedious. Even if the system of the group NCT is supposedly different so that members can form various sub-units and even leave the group, there's still 40 of them. And that is an overwhelming number. And there have been groups who've debuted with a crazy number of members. I don't recall any of them being successful as the original group member count.
This article on allkpop speculates that SM came up with this new system for NCT so that another Luhan, Kris, and Hankyung won't happen again. If that is true then their new system seems to be a fit solution. But they could've made various groups with the current 40 members rather than clump them altogether under the same name. I don't know, maybe I don't even have a right understanding of how all this works. But I feel like this is just a uniquely SM card and I just don't predict this to take over all the systems of idol groups in K-pop.
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