Billboard The 25 Greatest K-Pop Albums of the 2010s: Staff List
5. Red Velvet, Perfect Velvet (2017)
A truly consistent pop album is hard to come by, but Red Velvet have made a few of them to date -- and Perfect Velvet may be their crowning jewel. The sinister tropical house of lead single “Peek-a-Boo” sets the stage for a literal horror show, with the song’s video featuring all five members tormenting an unsuspecting pizza guy in a Hollywood bungalow. The whole album is punctuated by this candy-coated violence -- a core theme of Red Velvet’s discography -- and blown to dizzying proportions, even on tracks that don’t betray it at first glance.
“My Second Date” presents the outline of a midtempo R&B track, but is perforated by the paranoia of a second rendezvous -- from the toybox glockenspiel that traces out its melody, to the hyperactive dubstep of its chorus, to the manic guitar noodling that drops at around the halfway point. “I Just,” meanwhile, chugs along with locomotive urgency, a relentless meditation on turning the page in life. Red Velvet has always found euphoria amid the underlying menace of youth, and that anxiety shapes Perfect Velvet: a monumental work of discomfort and bliss. -- J.C.
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