K-pop group NCT Dream confirms new music for April, and Mark is back!

Be still our 2018-hearts! NCT Dream is coming back with new music, and Mark is confirmed to be on it! Can April come faster?

Sometimes, when I think about NCT Dream, I can still hear Mark’s voice. No, nothing happened to him, he just graduated and is overworked between the million other sub-units and groups he’s part of. But cheer up, NCTzens, for NCT Dream have announced a new album for April, and member Mark is confirmed to be on it!

Let’s unwrap. News of the album caught fire when a Korean news channel reported earlier today that NCT Dream are in the final stages of preparing for their comeback. The group’s agency, SM Entertainment, later confirmed the reports in a statement. This new album will come almost a year after 2020’s Reload.

Most importantly, it will also be NCT Dream’s first album with member Mark Lee since 2018’s We Go Up. Now, let’s dive into why we’re all freaking out. Under SM Entertainment’s expansive strategy, the 23 members of NCT are divided into different sub-units, usually interchangeable. Of these, NCT Dream employed a rotational system, where members “graduated” once they turned 20 years old and moved to different units.

In 2018, shortly before the release of We Go Up, SM Entertainment confirmed that Mark would be graduating in 2019 and working with other NCT sub-units. In accordance with the announcement, Mark promptly became a former member of NCT Dream on January 1st, 2019.

In April 2020, however, SM Entertainment retired the rotational system, making NCT Dream a permanent unit. They also added that future activities for the group will also include Mark, with NCT Dream continuing as a seven-member group and working like NCT U (which Mark is also a part of).

In fact, here’s where the jokes about Mark being a busy bee come in: not only is he a member of all of NCT’s sub-units (NCT127, NCT U, and NCT Dream), but also SuperM, a K-pop group that brings together EXO’s Kai and Baekhyun, SHINee’s Taemin, WayV’s Lucas and Ten, and NCT’s Taeyong and Mark.