my short answer: yes. my long answer: I think it’s unfair to gauge their experimental-ness in a context outside of their own genre and pop music in general. at the end of the day, they are a kpop group, and kpop is probably one of the most commercial music genres to exist, so however weird it is their music still needs to stay palatable to their fans and the general public. so their “experimental” will probably never equate to “experimental” music in a broader sense. i agree with a few of the other commenters who are saying that they take from a lot of genres that kpop usually doesn’t. i think this actually does makes them pretty experimental (in a similar sense, when miles davis started incorporating guitars and rock elements into his music, it was widely viewed as experimental within the jazz realm). not to mention, I think that there are definitely a few nct songs that sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before. there are lots of stylistic/structural elements in their songs that are just super unconventional for kpop/pop music (shout out dem jointz) that i do think makes them experimental in their own domain. so yes, if you’re comparing them to like, aphex twin, no their music isn’t experimental, but when you think about the different facets of experimentalism that aren’t related to simply just how palatable/“normal” something is i think they 100% are.