The band received national attention when it appeared on the televised 1988 MBC Campus Music Festival, a singing competition for amateurs.

[8] Shin released his first solo album in 1990, which included a song that had an English rap, which was unconventional in the Korean music scene at the time.

While his previous songs were mainly about love or heartache, here Shin started to write more about social issues, such as criticizing the fast lifestyle of urbanites in "City People".

The group's second album was released in 1994 titled The Return of N.EX.T Part 1: The Being where Shin introduced more philosophical lyrics, such as questioning the meaning of life in the song "The Ocean: About Immortality".

During this time he also did a one-time collaboration with singer Yoon Sang to form Nodance, wrote the original sound track for the Korean movie Jungle Story, and was the DJ for the MBC FM radio program FM Music City from 1996 to 1997.

After the release of Monocrom, Shin went to New York where he worked on producing his live album and some Korean movie soundtracks.

Shin returned to Korea in 2002 and worked on various projects, mainly writing songs for other artists or for movie soundtracks.

He also started DJing for a late night radio show Ghost Nation that became extremely popular.

Shin participated in special project in 2004, with the best musicians of Korea, the album named as "Tribute to Park Nohae's Collection of poems The Dawn of Labor 20th anniversary".

Shin was found to be suffering from prosopagnosia, on a TV show (MBC Goldfish) in which he made a guest appearance.

[17] Shin was treated for gastrointestinal problems by Dr. Kang Se Hoon at Sky Hospital on October 17, 2014.

[18] During surgery, Kang punctured Shin's upper small intestine and pericardium, which later resulted in peritonitis.

[18][19][20] At the urging of friends, Shin's family stopped his cremation at short notice and requested an autopsy.