⚡️The members of Japan-based squad NCT WISH were 18 to 23 years old when they put out their first official album Ode to Love, and two years into their K-pop careers. The youngest of the NCT subgroups, Sion, Riku, Yushi, Jaehee, Ryo, and Sakuya are producing some of the brightest and most earnest music of the SM Entertainment music project. The Story: In 2013, when the Korean sketch comedy show Gag Concert decided to use The Cranberries’ “Ode to My Family” as the theme song for one of its recurring romance skits, it cemented the dreamy Irish pop track in Korean culture. More than a decade later, K-pop squad NCT WISH taps into that cultural reference with “Ode to Love,” the UK garage title track off of their first full album, by sampling the track’s melody as a hook. While the NCT WISH song about holding on to kindness could be interpreted as touching on romantic love, it arguably has a stronger thematic connection to the original meaning of “Ode to My Family”: a longing for the simple happiness of childhood. NCT WISH is only so far away from those feelings of childhood, like Dolores O’Riordan was when she wrote “Ode to My Family.” Key Tracks: On the tempo-shifting rush of “Crush,” they compare falling in love to a welcome sunshower. On the jazzy hip-hop track “Street (2AM),” the sun sets and the members move, catlike, through the streets on their own terms. On the album-ending pop ballad “Voyage,” they care about their fans with the glorious stubbornness of youth: “Even if everyone says nothing lasts forever/Let's make it last forever now.”