'The ReVe Festival' Day 1

The record

‘The ReVe Festival’ Day 1 is the mini album Red Velvet released on 19 June 2019, six tracks led by ‘짐살라빔 (Zimzalabim)’. It opens a trilogy the group put out between that summer and the end of the year.

The album introduction on Bugs starts with the name of the series. ReVe is short for Red Velvet and also the name of the robot character the group introduced at their second solo concert, REDMARE, and written as the French rêve it means a dream or a fantasy. The same text presents the title track as an electro-pop track built on a rhythmic drum part and catchy synths, with an arrangement it compares to a parade. Daniel Caesar and Ludwig Lindell, who wrote ‘Red Flavor’, took part in the writing and the arrangement, and the label explains that Zimzalabim is a magic word of the kind used in Europe, carrying the idea of unfolding a dream kept deep inside.

Reviews

On 1 August 2024, for the group’s tenth anniversary, NME published a piece by Tássia Assis going through all 127 songs Red Velvet had released, one entry at a time. Five of this record’s six tracks have an entry there.

The one she puts highest is ‘Sunny Side Up!’. Assis wrote that “reggae and K-pop form an unlikely combination, but that renders surprising gems”, and called the song “a mellow cut that melts seamlessly with Red Velvet’s sultrier tones”. Of the lyric that lays a careful love over a plate of eggs she added that it is “the cherry on top – or should we say the salt and pepper? – of this banquet”.

On the title track the same piece records what a second listen years later left. “However, time has aged this song well: it has purpose, verve and the final chorus spreads with contagious passion. Maybe we are ready now.”

Among the tracks

‘친구가 아냐 (Bing Bing)’ is the track the album introduction describes as a pop song turning the tension of realising you are in love into a bright bass line and an energetic guitar. NME called it “the love child of Stevie Nicks’ ‘The Edge of Seventeen’ and Destiny Child’s ‘Bootylicious’, so there’s no way it could be anything less than great”, and wrote that “the irresistible energy on this track could have made it a strong single, but it proudly stands as one of Red Velvet’s best B-sides”.

‘Sunny Side Up!’ is a ragga-leaning pop song mixing reggae and hip-hop. By the album introduction its lyric likens the fine adjustments a couple has to make to cooking an egg sunny side up.

The closing ‘LP’ is a contemporary urban pop track laying analogue soul over a trap beat. NME’s entry for it runs to one line: “Three words: sax solo harmonies. End of blurb.”

The album introduction describes the other two songs as a funk-pop track carried by a rhythmic hook, ‘Milkshake’, and an electronic pop track built on bright synth melodies and sound effects, ‘안녕, 여름 (Parade)’.

Afterwards

‘The ReVe Festival’ Day 2 followed two months later as the second chapter, and in December ‘The ReVe Festival’ Finale closed the series by carrying all six of these songs again.