From Sugar And Spice To Everything Nice, This Is Why We Stan Red Velvet
With eight years of great pop tunes and numerous accolades under their belt, Red Velvet definitely has much to celebrate. And what better way to end the year than with a party, complete with sweet treats and a birthday cake, as seen in concept photos for their latest comeback, The ReVe Festival 2022 – Birthday.
Red Velvet burst into the scene in 2014 with their debut song Happiness. We take a look at what goes into the unique recipe that makes Red Velvet.
Delicious Earworms: From Addictive Beats to Classic Hooks
Red Velvet understands the importance of leaving an infectious tune stuck in your head. Songs like Dumb Dumb and Zimzalabim, complete with repetitive lyrics and absolutely addictive dance beats, always leave fans wanting more.
But that’s not all that defines their sound. Despite two studio albums and 14 EPs, you’ll be hard pressed to find songs that sound similar. In fact, their body of work is probably one of the most wide-ranging ever – from the hypnotic bubble gum banger that is Ice Cream Cake to sophisticated old school R&B vibes like Automatic.
With the new Birthday EP, Red Velvet continues to sample classic tunes, in the same vein as previous title track, Feel My Rhythm which samples Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air On A G String. This time round, the group shared on Twitter that their upcoming title track Birthday samples a jazz classic — George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Contrasting Flavor Bombs
Unbeknown to many, Red Velvet’s name isn’t inspired by the cake flavor, but the dual personas they embody: ‘red’ for bubbly, experimental pop, and elegant ‘velvet’ for their mellow, ’90s-influenced R&B side.
You’ll never get a boring comeback with them, as the group manages a new visual and musical concept each time. Case in point: 2018’s Peek-A-Boo is a bright tune juxtaposed against a sweet yet spooky visual concept, which had them wearing similar blood red outfits. And when they’re not sitting around looking creepily beautiful in their music video, they’re busy luring and hunting down a pizza delivery boy in glittery rainbow outfits — serving up the perfect combination of ‘red’ and ‘velvet’. Then in 2019, they fully embraced their mature ‘velvet’ side with Psycho, a tune that was sultry and sensual, yet catchy enough for a karaoke sesh.
This shift in visual and musical direction was significant for Red Velvet, who had initially captured public attention with their strong doll-like concepts and sugary sweet ‘red’ tunes like Russian Roulette, Power Up, and Red Flavor, proving to be a group with their own unique take on K-Pop as they masterfully navigate and excel in various genres and concepts.
Long-time ReVeluvs (what their fans are called) have seen the group blossom from a quintet of young girls to confident queens – maknae Yeri joined when she was 16 and is now 23!
A Sprinkling of the Unexpected
The unpredictability of Red Velvet seems to be the thing that keeps ReVeluvs coming back for more. When Red Velvet made a comeback earlier in 2022 with The ReVe Festival 2022 – Feel My Rhythm EP, they displayed an elegant, whimsical side – a sweet shift from their strong confident Queendom EP in 2021. Then, title track Feel My Rhythm debuted on Spotify’s Top Songs Global chart at no. 102 with over one million streams, toppling their previous record for Queendom, which debuted at no. 135.
Now, all eyes (and ears) are on what they’ll achieve with the new Birthday EP — and we’re here for it.
Savor all the flavors of Red Velvet and find your favourite tunes with the This is Red Velvet playlist.
