[MV Review] NCT U - "The 7th Sense"

Most people don't really get into nugus do to a number of reasons. Marketing is one major factor because the more chances you get to market your idols the better the chance they have at gaining traction in the industry. Most nugus don't get that chance, unless they're in the big 3 where the hype that builds their groups is almost unavoidable. SM has been teasing this new boy group and all of it's units for the past few months to the point that like iKON, they have a fanbase already built (not the extent of iKON but similar.) So does SM's mass marketing and teasing live up to the hype of the debut?

TL;DR: No.

This is the kind of song I listen to K-pop to get away from. Sure I enjoy some of these slower trap-infused "under-the-influence" songs that I hear on my local radio (a good example is Bryson Tiller's "Don't.") However k-pop just rarely does this style of music "right" and instead of having any sort of groove in the songs they just wind up being a boring, overly spacious and bare under-produced tracks with little to no appeal to them.

And that's the problem with "The 7th Sense." It's just one big lifeless snore-fest that slightly overstays it's welcome.The beginning makes it sound like it's going to be some good and weird f(x) sound before the stiff trap snares comes in with the a bass that's trying to be hypnotic but ultimately just doesn't do it's job and this is pretty much how the song sounds for the next couple of minutes. It doesn't make me want to slice my ears off but I don't see myself listening to this more than twice. The song has some interesting sounding moments and some interesting sounding instruments however it's not utilized to it's advantage and winds up falling flat.

As for how the members contribute themselves to the song, it's actually a decent performance. The rappers try and the vocalist actually manage to sound pretty good over this song and none of them come off as jarring or out-of-place in the song which can be pretty easy to do. However most people here don't really care about the contributing voices, so I highly doubt anyone to let the song when them over because the members don't sound bad.

SOURCE

So I've bitched on and on about the song, how about the video? It's awesome, and matches the feel the song was trying to accomplish. It's SM so a lot of sensory details and high production value sets are used to make this sort of ethereal traphouse come to life and it works 100%. Even the choreography shots with just the members dancing in a room draped in red work surprisingly well. Hell, even the choreography is pretty damn cool looking. I recommend checking this out once just for the visual experience because, the only thing that doesn't work with this release is the actual song.

I don't think NCT U will be a failure. It's SM and their hype machine, they're bound to get public recognition as long as SM doesn't fuck it up. Plus this song is getting very well received by fans so I don't see them evaporating into thin air or anything. However if this were any other rookie I'd have a hard time seeing a future for them.

Question - If they have a 7th sense, that implies that they have a 6th sense however neither of those are even discussed in the song or video. I tried looking the lyrics up however it's not discussed there either. What the hell are those two extra senses?