Biography
Drawing influence from such acts as En Vogue, Destiny's Child, and Gwen Stefani, the South Korean five-piece Red Velvet blends dance-focused contemporary R&B with rap-tinged pop. Their ascent among K-pop's leading global acts gained momentum once the mini-album Ice Cream Cake appeared, yielding chart-topping results in both South Korea and the United States through the official debut full-length The Red in 2015, the 2017 Rookie and Red Summer EPs, and the two-part ReVe Festival releases of 2019. The sextet of Queendom arrived as their sixth EP in 2021, succeeded the next year by Bloom, their inaugural Japanese studio album. Chill Kill, officially their third Korean full-length, surfaced near the end of 2023, while the EP Cosmic followed in 2024.
SM Entertainment assembled the Seoul-based lineup in 2014, uniting former SM Rookies Seulgi (Kang Seul-gi), Irene (Bae Joo-hyun), and Wendy (Son Seung-wan) with Joy (Park Soo-young) and Yeri (Kim Ye-rim). Early singles "Happiness" and "Natural" from 2014 connected strongly with listeners and ranked among South Korea's most-viewed online videos that month. Red Velvet's first EP, Ice Cream Cake, landed in March 2015 and featured the track "Automatic," climbing to number two on Billboard's World Albums chart.
The Red, their opening full-length, reached stores in September 2015 and claimed the top spot on both the Billboard World Albums and Korean Albums charts thanks to the single "Dumb Dumb." An R&B-leaning sequel, The Velvet, emerged in 2016, with the third EP Russian Roulette issued only months afterward. Rookie: The 4th Mini Album, another chart leader, came out in January 2017. Several months later the group unveiled their second album, Perfect Velvet: The 2nd Album, which led the Billboard World Albums tally on the strength of "Peek-a-Boo." Summer Magic arrived in 2018, highlighted by "Power Up" and an English rendition of "Bad Boy." In 2019 they released the mini-album The ReVe Festival: Day 1, then followed it a month later with ReVe Festival: Day 2; each topped the Korean charts and entered the Top Ten of the U.S. World chart.
With live touring curtailed in 2020, Red Velvet contributed "Russian Roulette" to Trolls World Tour and supplied a cover of "Milky Way" for pop veteran BoA's anniversary project. Their return came via the sixth EP Queendom in 2021. Bloom, the first Japanese studio album, surfaced in 2022 and was closely trailed by the EPs The ReVe Festival 2022: Feel My Rhythm and Reve Festival 2022: Birthday. Six years after their prior Korean album, Chill Kill arrived in November 2023 and reached number two on the South Korean album chart. The EP Cosmic was issued in 2024.
SM Entertainment assembled the Seoul-based lineup in 2014, uniting former SM Rookies Seulgi (Kang Seul-gi), Irene (Bae Joo-hyun), and Wendy (Son Seung-wan) with Joy (Park Soo-young) and Yeri (Kim Ye-rim). Early singles "Happiness" and "Natural" from 2014 connected strongly with listeners and ranked among South Korea's most-viewed online videos that month. Red Velvet's first EP, Ice Cream Cake, landed in March 2015 and featured the track "Automatic," climbing to number two on Billboard's World Albums chart.
The Red, their opening full-length, reached stores in September 2015 and claimed the top spot on both the Billboard World Albums and Korean Albums charts thanks to the single "Dumb Dumb." An R&B-leaning sequel, The Velvet, emerged in 2016, with the third EP Russian Roulette issued only months afterward. Rookie: The 4th Mini Album, another chart leader, came out in January 2017. Several months later the group unveiled their second album, Perfect Velvet: The 2nd Album, which led the Billboard World Albums tally on the strength of "Peek-a-Boo." Summer Magic arrived in 2018, highlighted by "Power Up" and an English rendition of "Bad Boy." In 2019 they released the mini-album The ReVe Festival: Day 1, then followed it a month later with ReVe Festival: Day 2; each topped the Korean charts and entered the Top Ten of the U.S. World chart.
With live touring curtailed in 2020, Red Velvet contributed "Russian Roulette" to Trolls World Tour and supplied a cover of "Milky Way" for pop veteran BoA's anniversary project. Their return came via the sixth EP Queendom in 2021. Bloom, the first Japanese studio album, surfaced in 2022 and was closely trailed by the EPs The ReVe Festival 2022: Feel My Rhythm and Reve Festival 2022: Birthday. Six years after their prior Korean album, Chill Kill arrived in November 2023 and reached number two on the South Korean album chart. The EP Cosmic was issued in 2024.
Albums
Singles
