NCT Wish desires to continue miraculous journey of growth with 1st EP ‘Steady’

NCT Wish performs "Steady," the title track of the group's EP, for the first time on stage during a press conference in Seoul on Tuesday. (SM Entertainment)

NCT Wish released its first mini album, “Steady,” Tuesday.

The EP is led by the titular track “Steady,” a house number with UK garage and Jersey club beats that combines for a sophisticated melody.

“The song is about our desire to forever remember the miraculous journey that we’ve been through to meet with our fans. The lyrics are cute and trendy that Gen Zs can easily relate to,” said Sion.

The title track was produced by Kenzie, a veteran producer behind dozens of K-pop’s biggest hits.

The music video for “Steady” portrays a youthful and exciting first love. The cinematic visual effects accentuate the video's dreamy mood, which is expected to resonate across generations.

“The choreography for the titular track has many hand motions of the waking genre and uses dynamic stepping moves. You can feel our vibrant energy through the performance,” said Ryo.

The album also carries six other tracks: “Dunk Shot,” “3 Minutes,” “On & On,” “Supercute,” “Skate” and the Korean version of “Hands Up.”

“There are also music videos for two of our B-side tracks: ‘Dunk Shot’ and ‘3 Minutes.’ In the music video for ‘3 Minutes,’ we confess our love to our crush three minutes before the apocalypse. We can stop the apocalypse if our crush clicks ‘like’ on our social media post,” said Ryo.

“We prepared diverse content to promote the album release on social media. We had fun filming it, so we hope that our fans enjoy them as well,” said Sion.

K-pop star BoA, a producer behind the launch of NCT Wish, also took part in directing the new album.

“BoA adjusted the choreography for the title track to help accentuate our fortes. Also, there was no rapping part in the original version of the title track, but she added one,” said Ryo.

The album had recorded 800,000 preorders as of Monday, surpassing the group’s previous preorders record of 630,000 for the Korean and Japanese versions of the single "Songbird," which released in July.

“We are looking forward to our first Asia tour, set to kick off in Japan in November. Our next goal is to hold standalone concerts at big stadiums and domes around the world,” said Riku.

By Hong Yoo(yoohong@heraldcorp.com)