'The ReVe Festival' Finale

The record

‘The ReVe Festival’ Finale is the repackage album Red Velvet released on 23 December 2019, sixteen tracks led by ‘Psycho’. It closes the trilogy the group put out across that year.

By the album introduction on Bugs the record takes the twelve songs from ‘The ReVe Festival’ Day 1 in June and ‘The ReVe Festival’ Day 2 in August and adds four: the title track ‘Psycho’, the new ‘In & Out’ and ‘Remember Forever’, and the special track ‘La Rouge’. The same text says the twelve were sequenced in reverse order of release so that the record feels like walking back into the summer of the festival. It describes the title track as an up-tempo urban pop track whose lyric has a couple admit that, however strange they may look to everyone else, they have only each other.

Reviews

IZM’s Kim Do-heon read the song as the end of the series. He wrote that “the bright festival of ‘Zimzalabim’ and ‘Umpah Umpah’ comes to its bittersweet conclusion in ‘Psycho’”, and that the song “combines the mysterious fairy-tale concept of < The Red > and < Rookie > with the groove of ‘Bad boy’ and unfolds, without awkwardness, the strangeness of a love that cannot help being unreasonable”. Of the arrangement he wrote that “over a trap beat whose bass is fuller in deference to the Christmas season and the end of the year, the members’ backing vocals fill the gaps in the sound effectively”.

The same piece closes on the song itself: “It is a good song. The fine melody, the interesting theme and the performance that carries them all succeed in finding a balance.” Of how the parts are shared he added that “it is Wendy’s voice at the song’s high point and Seulgi’s leading the chorus that satisfy most”.

On 29 December 2019 Billboard placed ‘Psycho’ 18th in its selection of the year’s 25 K-pop songs. The entry wrote that the song “may present itself as dignified and graceful — pizzicato strings and elegant, multipart harmonies — but it brims with a desire to break free from such genteel comportment”, and closed: “In this musical decorum is a revelation often missing from pop songs: the work behind every true love.”

Among the tracks

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. Of the title track she wrote that “at the tail end of 2019, Red Velvet released what would become their biggest hit”, and that “knowingly or not, ‘Psycho’ captured the zeitgeist like no other”. What she takes as the song’s posture is its last line: “In luxuriating falsettos and future bass loops, it keeps elegance on its sleeve and refuses to despair.”

Of the new ‘In & Out’ the same piece wrote: “Another misleading title, because falling out is something you won’t do for this god-tier B-side.” The album introduction presents it as a mid-tempo pop dance track built on a fresh trap groove and an addictive hook, comparing the pull of someone irresistible to eating a sweet doughnut.

The special track ‘La Rouge’ was first performed at the group’s third solo concert. NME wrote: “God bless the souls who decided we needed a studio version of ‘La Rouge’, because it did not disappoint one bit.” The entry picks out the sizzling guitars and the smooth ad libs.

Afterwards

The next release by the full group came a year and eight months later with Queendom.