I listen to all of Lay’s stuff! =) I haven’t listened to the relift (I’m not even sure I know who Alan Walker is…), but I will now. The Station releases have been awesome, but I want so much more. This better not be the release they meant; Minseok will have to enlist soon, so I want some comebacks ASAP.

So I have some ongoing resentment towards SM about how they manage their groups. I like NCT well enough, but zi do think they’ve sucked up a lot of SM’s attention (part of it, I think, is that they’re younger and also still having some difficulty really establishing themselves; by comparison, Exo was in a pretty established place by 2014, which was the beginning of their third year). Also – this not me being mean and just trying to view the situation dispassionately – I think NCT is a very different group from SM’s standpoint. They’re performance and rap heavy, but they lack SM’s traditional specialty, which is strong vocals (Doyoung and Taeil are okay, but it’s hard to put them side-by-side with Kyungsoo-Baekhyun-Jongdae, Onew-Jonghyun, Yesung-Ryeowook-Kyuhyun, etc.). DREAM aside, NCT also doesn’t have the kind of variety chops SuJu or Shinee possess (not yet anyway). So it makes sense that SM is trying to work with them. But ai still think SM is being awfully neglectful of their older groups, especially Exo and Shinee (I expected way more in the way of promotion from SM for The Story of Light, especially in light of the circumstances surrounding its release).

If SM’s logic is that Exo’s popularity will diminish as they get older, then I think that’s flawed. They have three top notch singers who will continue to sing well regardless of their age and who can handle a lot of different genres. They have two amazing dancers, one of whom is still only 24 . They have budding actors in Kyungsoo, Kai and maybe Sehun. They have variety talents in Baek, Yixing and Yeolie. They might not be able to brand themselves as a “boy band” (in the Western sense of that term) forever, but, given their talents, I think that will be a minor impediment at most.

@smaltwalt
Well, I didn’t know him either, but they did a collab together and Lay even performed the relift at Lollapalooza (a festival in Chicago). I guess SM didn’t count on Minseok having to enlist this early, the new enlistment law became effective this August.

I haven’t seen a company which would be perfect in their management yet. I think one of the problems of NCT is their unstable line-up. There are too many of them and three new rookies are joining again from what I’ve heard. That’s one of the reasons I’ve never attempted to get into them.

I don’t think I’ve paid enough attention to them to be able to judge their vocals or anything else, but I have noticed they have some very good rappers. What most Exo fans don’t like about this situation is how SM is trying to make us all switch to NCT (or that’s what is seems like to me).
I agree older groups deserve more promotion. I’ve heard Girls’ Generation latest song wasn’t even on music shows? Oh, and f(x) haven’t had a comeback for three years now. What more did you expect for Shinee? They did a lot of variety and were on music shows… Just asking.

Well, in a way they are right. New generation of K-pop (teenage) fans will come and they will focus on the current “big thing” in K-pop. If Exo is in the army, they might not have a comeback for a while, therefore new fans might not notice them. Some of the Exo fans might stop doing K-pop and focus on their real lives instead. But Exo will still have a huge fan base and a lot of popularity in spite of that. Unfortunately, they won’t be SM’s main priority anymore.
It seems that’s what Exo’s been working on this past year – their individual careers. (Except for the singers maybe). I agree, they are all talented. And successful. Didn’t you mean three dancers? Kai, Sehun and Lay.
Anyways, comeback, come soon!