Red Velvet Are Victims Of Their Own Success, Sort Of
A critique of myself, and Red Velvet's latest mini-album
It feels at times that Red Velvet’s biggest enemy is themselves. The group is well-known for many great K-pop hits over the years, but those songs may have set a high, or even unfair expectation for them every time they come around. Could this be the case? That’s an idea I’ve been running through my head after the group recently returned with the mini-album The ReVe Festival 2022 - Feel My Rhythm.
Life isn’t fair. We’ve all been told that at some point, and that unfortunately applies to music opinions as well. Our biases and our past experiences influence how we feel about new releases. Red Velvet might be a case of how our positive experiences with an artist make us more critical than before.
Red Velvet’s greatest works as a musical act set a high bar for themselves that is hard to attain consistently. So when that high understandably isn’t matched, the reaction might be harsher than if applied to someone else. This is no cry for a double standard. I can point blame at the general public or others in particular for this, but I myself am certainly guilty of it as well.
Red Velvet has put together an incredible discography since forming in 2014. Like many other SM Entertainment groups, they have crafted high-quality projects – some of which are considered to be up in all-time lists for the genre of K-pop. This includes their debut album The Red, or critically acclaimed 2017 project Perfect Velvet.
For how varying and different Red Velvet’s sounds can be, their success rate is quite impressive. To find their last track that stirred the pot, you would have to go back and listen to the 2019 release “Zimzalabim.” I personally believe that history has been kinder to the more controversial Red Velvet songs. Once a skeptic of “Zimzalabim” and a pungently negative listener to “RBB (Really Bad Boy),” I have since come around to both songs. Is this because I force-fed these songs to myself until I was brainwashed into liking them? I don’t think so. Data shows I listened to “RBB” once in the first six months that it was out. Something about returning a few times in the years to come made me have second thoughts about it. Maybe in those cases I first listened with the expectation of one thing, then lashed out when I was served another by the group. In retrospect, that might have been unfair of me.
The idea of expecting more, and feeling almost let down has been a gut feeling before. When the ground returned with Queendom last year, there was a feeling of “that’s it?” after the first listen-through. The songs were great, but I knew I was listening to the same Red Velvet that has created what I consider to be some of the greatest K-pop tracks of the past five years. As time went on I realized that these songs were of great quality and, in many cases, a more different sound than what I had expected from other groups. I came to appreciate that the music they put out wasn’t their best work but was still levels above many others. I carried this perspective into the group’s most recent release and found myself pleased with what I got from it.
The title track for their most recent project, “Feel My Rhythm,” is elaborate. The song starts with an elegant beginning that samples the 1871 classical music track “Air on the G String.” It then blasts you right back into the future: loud horns, jittery hi-hats, other digitally produced sound effects. Then up to the chorus we get a combination of the two: old and new, together working in complete harmony. The song is another testament to the elaborate production that comes with Red Velvet’s music.
The mini-album may lack any type of consistent theme or vibe. No song feels similar to “Feel My Rhythm.” Actually, no song feels similar to any other song. They’re all great in their own way, but there’s certainly room (to some extent) to feel that this release doesn’t come with too much of an identity. It could be argued that this is nitpicking, as K-pop groups tend to just smörgåsbord songs together without much real theme overall. However, it must be noted that this is something Red Velvet has excelled with in the past, and it has played a big part in why some of their best projects are considered so great.
“Rainbow Halo” sticks out early on in the tracklist, showcasing light vocals of the group over a busy pop track. The project ends with an incredibly somber story of unrequited love in “In My Dreams.” The light pre-chorus including the heartbreaking line “In my dreams you love me back” paired with the hard-hitting chorus to follow makes a good pair. The other songs, “Beg For Me,” “BAMBOLEO” and “Good, Bad, Ugly,” are all hard to compare but have their own distinct sounds that are also worth checking out.
It is more of a compliment than anything that Red Velvet makes themselves a hard act to follow. Their sounds are often better than many competitors, and that is what makes their music so unique. Unfortunately for them, along with their competition they have to follow up on their own acts as well. It’s certainly human to compare releases from an artist and make judgments based on that. Feel My Rhythm is no Perfect Velvet or The Red. But, it’s a great EP that has a ton of enjoyable music in it that is worth checking out. At the end of the day, Red Velvet may not exceed expectations, but maybe that’s on us.