Pitchfork乐评：Red Velvet - The ReVe Festival 2022 - Feel My Rhythm（原文+翻译）

On a new mini-album, the K-pop group known for bold summer hits returns with refined, verdant dance-pop better suited for springtime.

在全新的迷你专辑中，这个以活泼夏日热歌所著名的K-pop组合带着与春日更相衬的精致青葱的流行舞曲回归了。

For the first half of their career, Red Velvet gave equal attention to both halves of their name: “Red” for eye-catching pop confidence, “velvet” for classy restraint. Titles of their past releases, The Red and Perfect Velvet, were prosaically clear about which side the music played for, but since the explicit blend of the two on 2018’s The Perfect Red Velvet, the genre-bending girl group have merged their dueling components with increasing abandon. On their latest mini-album, The ReVe Festival 2022 - Feel My Rhythm, released just a fortnight before the eerie glimmer of Japanese full-length Bloom, Red Velvet return with a verdant dance-pop sound. Clothed in Pre-Raphaelite finery in the era’s artwork and videos, the queens of bold summer hits deliberately make their comeback with a refined springtime landscape in tow.

在Red Velvet职业生涯的前半段中，她们充分地展现出了自己名字的两半部分：Red代表吸引眼球、自信张扬的流行风格，Velvet则代表低调的优雅风格。她们过去发行的两张唱片，分别名为《The Red》和《Perfect Velvet》，非常明显地展示出了它们所属的音乐风格，但自从2018年发行的《The Perfect Red Velvet》将这两种风格直接糅合起来后，这个风格交织的女团开始越来越放肆地把这两种制胜法宝般的音乐风格结合起来。在她们准备发行略带怪诞风格的第一张日本正规专辑《Bloom》的两周前，她们带着充满青翠流行舞曲的最新迷你专辑《The ReVe Festival 2022 - Feel My Rhythm》回归了。在这个时期的写真和视频中，夏日女王们身着拉斐尔前派式样的华丽服饰，带着精巧的春日景致一起回归乐坛。

Feel My Rhythm is colored in blooming detail: A promenade from purple and green to yellow and blue in the swooning “Rainbow Halo,” the tranquility of fluttering “petals” in “In My Dreams,” billowing “confetti” across the hook of “Feel My Rhythm.” Bold and stylish, “Feel My Rhythm” is one of Red Velvet’s finest title tracks. Reminiscent of the elegant darkness of their 2019 hit “Psycho,” “Feel My Rhythm” is based on a wistful sample of Bach’s “Air on the G String” layered with a clangorous EDM trap beat. But the song’s frisson isn’t based on the shallow spectacle of the two genres’ contrast. Instead, “Feel My Rhythm”’s contradictions serve to elevate the harmony, playing as smooth and lush as the similar pop concept on the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” Irene’s blunt opening line—“We’re blowing up this fancy ball”—verbally protests while sonically agreeing, and Yeri’s spoken delivery of “Grab me in your motion/G-give me another direction” stutters in time with the detonating rhythm behind her. She sounds unharmonious but skillfully sidesteps discordance.

《Feel My Rhythm》的色彩在这些盛放的细节中得以体现：令人陶醉的《Rainbow Halo》中描绘的彩虹色漫步长廊；《In My Dreams》中飞舞的“花瓣”带来的安宁；以及在《Feel My Rhythm》的副歌中飘扬的“彩色纸屑”。活泼而又时尚的《Feel My Rhythm》是她们最棒的主打曲之一，这首歌基于对巴赫的《G弦上的咏叹调》致敬经典的采样，再加上叮当作响的电子trap节拍，不免让人想起她们2019年的大热曲目《Psycho》的优雅暗黑风格。但这首歌的震撼之处并不是体现在两种风格相碰撞的浅显层面上，相反，这种矛盾感是有助于提升歌曲的和谐感，就像英国乐队Verve的名曲《Bitter Sweet Symphony》体现的类似的流行概念一样细腻流畅，性感迷人。Irene直率的开场白——“我们要玩炸这场华丽的舞会”——在言辞上表示抗议，却在声音上表示赞同，而Yeri说唱着“Grab me in your motion/G-give me another direction”与她声音下的爆炸性节奏错拍进行。她的唱段听起来不和谐但却巧妙地回避开了这种不调和。

The sauntering “BAMBOLEO” plays at a five-pronged intersection of nations—its title likely derives from a Spanish-language song by a French band, its K-pop melody ornamented with Japanese city pop stylings, its hook declared romantically in English. But it primly avoids chaos, sounding as evenly dreamy as a Tokyo-tinged cut off of K-pop contemporary YUKIKA’s 2021 EP Timeabout. Only “Good, Bad, Ugly” feels underwhelming in the context of the mini, tepidly and unmemorably strolling through well-trod R&B. Similarly, “Beg for Me” declares itself sensually commanding but is fairly chaste in execution. The chanted invocation of “Dance for me, work for me, beg for me, die for me” and murmured request of “bring out your freak” are amusingly sterile—only Wendy and Joy’s rap glimmers with any real sultriness, delivered with a dark smirk and whispered haste. But the luxurious, balmy closer “In My Dreams” brings a more complex conclusion. Despite all the ornate bravado and glamor across Feel My Rhythm, the ballad centers on a surprisingly tender admission of rejection: “In my dreams, you love me back”.

闲庭漫步般的《BAMBOLEO》以五个国家的风情交织演绎着：歌名看起来像是来自于法国乐队演唱的西班牙语歌曲，它有着K-pop歌曲的旋律，同时用日本的City Pop编曲风格加以装饰，歌曲的高光部分又是在用英语浪漫深情地演绎着。但它完美地避免了杂糅带来的混乱，听起来就像当代K-pop歌手YUKIKA在2021年发行的EP《Timeabout》中带有东京风格的歌曲一样梦幻。只有《Good, Bad, Ugly》这首歌在其他曲目的衬托下显得不尽人意，不温不火，毫不起眼，在用烂了的R&B模板中徘徊。同样地，《Beg for Me》宣称感性的发号施令但实际执行起来也太过朴素。吟唱的咒语“Dance for me, work for me, beg for me, die for me”和窃窃私语的要求“bring out your freak”有趣但是毫无新意，只有Wendy和Joy的rap部分带着一些真正的声色，传达着腹黑的假笑，表达着呢喃的催促。但是，华丽柔和的结尾曲《In My Dreams》带来了一个更加繁复的结局。尽管《Feel My Rhythm》中充满了绚丽的炫耀和魅惑，但这首情歌的主旨是对爱而不得的拒绝的令人惊讶的温柔默许：在我的梦中，你才会爱我。

In the video for “Feel My Rhythm,” the members of Red Velvet drape themselves in the visual beauty of Western classics—Seulgi seated in striking Stygian stylings, Joy raptly posed as John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia,” Irene arcing across the frame in a diaphanous recreation of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s famous swing. But it’s the less conspicuous Bosch references that ring truest. “The Garden of Earthly Delights” isn’t as immediately Instagrammable as Monet’s lilies, but its phantasmagorical presence—the triptych’s surreal details strewn across a landscape of monstrous set pieces—feels like an appropriate metaphor for Red Velvet’s mythical stature in the modern landscape of K-pop. Despite stumbling on last year’s Queendom, Feel My Rhythm stirs awake from complacency and reinstates the group’s regality without compromising their principles. Resolutely elegant and vocal amid a flashy, Blackpink-influenced fourth generation of girl groups, Red Velvet shrug off trends and embrace their signature idiosyncrasy.

在《Feel My Rhythm》的mv中，Red Velvet的成员们将自己代入了西方经典艺术作品的视觉美感中——Seulgi以引人注目的幽冥造型端坐着，Joy全神贯注地摆出约翰·埃弗里特·米莱斯的画作《奥菲利亚》中的姿态，Irene坐在让·奥诺雷·弗拉戈纳尔著名的《秋千》上轻盈地穿过画面。但最真实的还是那幅不太明显的希罗尼穆斯·博斯的作品。《人间乐园》不像莫奈的百合花那样可以立即在Instagram上搜索到并展示出来，但这幅三联画幻象般的存在，超现实的细节散落在畸形的场景中，感觉像是对Red Velvet在当代K-pop领域中神话般的地位的一个恰当比喻。尽管在去年的《Queendom》中表现不佳，但《Feel My Rhythm》将她们从自满中唤醒，在她们的音乐本质中寻找到折衷的道路，让她们能够重登王位。在受BLACKPINK影响的，华而不实的四代女团中，Red Velvet坚决地保持着她们的优雅态度与优美天籁，对所谓潮流不予理睬、不屑一顾，去拥抱那份专属于她们的，标志性的特立独行。