Red Velvet Comeback In 2017: SM Entertainment K-Pop Girl Group Takes You On An ‘Alice In Wonderland’ Tour Of Their Careers In ‘Rookie’ [Video]

Last month, the K-pop community learned that February would be one of the most aggressive months as it marked the first 2017 K-pop comebacks of numerous powerhouse K-pop acts. Probably the biggest name on the list is BTS, a K-pop boy band so intimidating that many other labels and agencies keep an eye on when they will release new content to protect their artists. However, there are other K-pop acts who are unafraid of BTS. Twice is one such act as they will make a K-pop comeback in the same month as BTS too.

However, the one K-pop act leading the way for February is Red Velvet. The SM Entertainment girl group consisting of five members — Irene, Joy, Wendy, Seulgi, and Yeri — just released their first comeback for 2017. It is called Rookie and it is dazzling in all its vibrant colors.

News of Red Velvet making their first K-pop comeback for 2017 came about midway through January. Eventually, the popular K-pop girl group and SM Entertainment would start to systematically release promotions and teasers to help build hype for said upcoming comeback. Through them, we learned it was titled Rookie and would be the next extended play (EP) or mini-album right after Russian Roulette. Eventually, Red Velvet and SM Entertainment released their final promotions outside of music video snippets of the title track song of the same name.

Just before the release of Rookie, we learned the final details of the upcoming mini-album, as reported by AllKpop. For starters, there would be six songs on the mini-album. Besides “Rookie,” there was also “Little Little,” “Happily Ever After,” “Talk To Me,” and”Body Talk.” The sixth song titled “??? ??” which loosely translates to “Last Love” is special because it is a solo song by Wendy. For those who don’t know, Wendy has stood out from the other members back in 2016 for her numerous songs released on SM Station.

Finally, with the last promotions, K-pop fans got to see what the album actually looks like. Apparently, Rookie will take on the concept of a book which makes sense given that all the promos so far looked as if they were in an open book. There will be five versions of the album’s cover representing each member prominently. There will be a randomly signed card and poster too.

Nevertheless, Rookie has finally released and as for the music video, there is a lot going on. According to Billboard, it is described as a song that is both sweet and a trip as it is a pop-funk single that draws on unconventional musicality to combine low-key sing-speaking and synth beats before blasting into the saccharine hook of a chorus. As for the music video itself, it kind of has an “Alice in Wonderland” feel as the girls chase this flower creature through numerous scenarios reminiscent of their previous hit songs like “Dumb Dumb” and “One Of These Nights.”

As expected, K-pop fans are loving the unique song by Red Velvet, proven by the fact that the music video for “Rookie” achieved over 1 million views in less than half a day. Technically, earning such a high number of views is great in general, but compared to the other girl groups in the same generation as Red Velvet, they are behind especially compared to Twice who currently holds the record for the most views for a music video within the first day (“TT” with 5.9 million views).

Red Velvet just released Rookie so they will switch to post-release promotions which include interviews and music competition variety show participation. We will keep K-pop fans updated with any news pertaining to Red Velvet and Rookie on said post-release promotions once they become available.

[Featured Image by SM Entertainment]