Nine years after debuting as part of NCT 127, Haechan is finally releasing an album of his own. He’s a huge R&B fan and worked with a small team of collaborators to craft a suite of songs that honor that genre. It’s a sign of shifting generations that the template for male soloists has gone from Michael Jackson/Prince to Justin Timberlake. This feels like a major downgrade to me, but JT’s Justified is a legitimately great album and Haechan’s CRZY is heavily influenced by its lead single Like I Love You.
Haechan has one of my favorite voices in NCT. It has so much character and texture and his performance carries a natural sense of showmanship. Those strengths are well-suited to CRZY‘s lithe, guitar-driven presentation. On the whole, the song is fast-moving and fun. It relies more on vocal flavor than dynamic melody, but that’s par for the course when it comes to K-pop this year. The chorus is slight but effective, weaving through the strummed percussion of the guitar.
However, CRZY is such a Y2K homage that its more modern elements stand out in a negative way. I like the brief switch-up in verse two but don’t understand why the beat has to pull back so strikingly during the pre-choruses. This needlessly wastes momentum and triggers a reset rather than a thrilling continuation of the verse. And as punchy as the guitar is, CRZY‘s truncated refrain just can’t compete with the epic hooks it’s clearly inspired by. Luckily, Haechan’s effortless charisma carries the day.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8.25 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I enjoyed this song; it’s been a long time coming.
By the way, he debuted in NCT 127 a month before debuting in NCT Dream.
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Ugh. I forgot he was part of Fire Truck. Hard to keep it all straight!
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You know its too complicated when there are detailed charts (plural) in wikipedia for who is in which subgroup when.
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It’s good, I see a bit of MJ influences, but it lowkey falls flat and a bit generic. But Haechan delivers it pretty good, he has a great voice (his lower register verses surprised me in a good way!), so I have a feeling it’ll age well with time.
Rating’s the same.
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The album is awesome!
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Whoever chose the guitar motif did a good job. Also the chord progression of same – just off kilter enough to sound interesting, but not too weird.
I also appreciate the spritely pace. That they kept a real bridge and repeat the chorus one more time with feeling, nice. Haechan’s performance keeps up with it all.
If I have a gripe, it is that I don’t know why companies keep giving song written for multiple voices to soloists. The overlapping vocals (eg 0:50-1:05) can never be sung in full during a performance. Also the multiple vocal threads – now up, now down, now a rap, now in this voice, now in that voice – mean that the soloist can’t build the emotional journey that songs should have. They are too busy jumping from one line to the other to properly develop the music.
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Something is missing regarding the ending. It kinda bothers me. Either way this song is amazing ✨
My rating’s about the same.
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I like it but don’t love it, but Haechan is already a major talent in that he can elevate thinner material. Love that Fullsun.
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My expectations might’ve been too high that he would do an MJ like track (like Jungkook’s “Standing Next to You”) because of MJ being an inspiration. Instead this is something more slinky and subdued, but incredibly skillful in it’s execution. Reminds me a bit of Baekhyun’s solo work and Jaehyun’s “Forever Only”.
In a way this matches the energy Haechan brought to the NCT Dream concert I saw him in. He’s very elegant, cool, precise, makes hard things look easy. I’m going to listen to this more and dig into the album. Very happy he gets a solo career, well deserved!
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His dancing sings and his singing dances. The song doesn’t quite gel for me, but it has my attention.
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The song itself is decent for what its going for but if it wasn’t for my NCT bias I wouldn’t have looked. If you know his musical tastes the album direction won’t be a surprise. I’ll give him credit for having a vision and executing it well.
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