The Red Summer

The record

The Red Summer is Red Velvet’s summer mini album, released on 9 July 2017 with five tracks. The title track is ‘빨간 맛 (Red Flavor)’. It follows Rookie by five months and is the first record the group aimed squarely at a summer season song.

The album introduction on Bugs describes the title track as an up-tempo dance track built on a cool synth sound, a rhythmic melody and a groove-led rhythm, with a lyric that puts the feelings of summer and of love into the colour and the taste of red. By the same text ‘You Better Know’ is bright electronic pop, ‘Zoo’ a tropical dance track carrying sounds that suggest a safari, and ‘바다가 들려 (Hear The Sea)’ a piece that draws a summer night after the sun has gone down with piano and guitar.

Reviews

Lee Gi-seon of IZM wrote his conclusion on the record plainly: “On the album, one can conclude that it is sound.” Of the title track he wrote, “The first thing to say is that ‘빨간 맛’ is a good song,” adding that “the structure and the pacing are good, so the hook’s melody comes through, and the dramatic build is completed by Wendy taking the climax in the latter half”. Of the other tracks he wrote that “given the constraint of a mini album, the songs are creditable one by one”.

Idology (아이돌로지) ran the record as five writers’ short notes in ‘1st Listen’, its column on the records of early July 2017. Mimyo divided the song’s surface from what is under it: “‘빨간 맛’ looks cute, odd, fresh and busy, with hands waving under the chin, but sit and listen and it is a deeply rousing song with charisma.” He wrote that the record is “reaching, inside a girlish surface, for maturity as a bolder and stronger performer”. Simdyang called it “the freshest and most beautiful slice of summer a girl group can show”.

Among the tracks

The title track ‘빨간 맛 (Red Flavor)’ is the most widely covered track in this run of records. Hwang Seon-eop of IZM published a separate single review just after release, writing that “the overdubbed chorus with its steep drop arrives from the very first bar so warmly that you find yourself saying, is that really the group I knew?”, and that “where you expect it to burst open it instead hides the bassline and the synthesiser, and the beat comes forward — a sensuous structure, and again out of the ordinary”. He closed the piece: “So this was the taste of the summer I love.”

Kim Seong-yeop of the same outlet returned to the song in June 2021, in a piece choosing 10 summer songs. He wrote that “the summer ‘빨간 맛’ draws runs its course perfectly”, and that “the structure, from the fast chorus to an ending that slows the tempo and leaves an aftertaste, holds a day of some summer in many flavours”. Idology’s Oyo called the track “quite an eager one, as if declaring that summer now means Red Velvet”, writing that “it takes a firm rhythm for a frame and uses the bass as a booster to stretch out cleanly to the end”. Randy, after taking apart the chord work, called it “the song facing summer head-on with the heaviest impact of any track out this summer”. Hamchwa pointed to the latter half: “Wendy’s high note stretching out is not simply vocal technique — it is an exclamation mark placed exactly where it should be over a song written without hesitation.” Tássia Assis of NME placed the song third in the 127-song retrospective the outlet published on 1 August 2024, writing that it is “immediately recognisable because of its distorted vocal loop and propelling energy”.

‘Zoo’ and ‘바다가 들려 (Hear The Sea)’ are the two tracks Idology’s Simdyang named as required listening. Of ‘Zoo’ he wrote that “here you find them in a rainforest rather than the fruit-flavoured Red Velvet”, and of ‘바다가 들려’ that “you can see a narrator walking an evening sea after the hot wind has passed, singing feelings that ripple like the waves wetting their feet”. Assis placed ‘Zoo’ 44th, writing that a song with monkey screeches, elephant trumpets and lion roars embraces the chaotic nature of love, and ‘바다가 들려’ 100th, calling it “a sweet close out to their vibrant ‘The Red Summer’ mini-album”.

Of ‘You Better Know’, Idology’s Mimyo wrote that the electro-pop line of the earlier records “bursts out this time on the second track, more lavish and more confident, through ‘You Better Know’, which pulls the cliches of dance music tradition straight in”. Assis placed the song seventh in her retrospective, writing that if freedom had a sound it would likely be this one. Of ‘여름빛 (Mojito)’ Mimyo wrote that it is “unhurried, with a low voice and a harmony of wide space, yet speedy like film rolling past”.

Afterwards

The second full-length album Perfect Velvet put the velvet side forward four months later, and the group’s summer records continued the following year with Summer Magic.