Red Velvet's story as idols begins with their time with "SM Rookies", a training team under SM Entertainment whose members were trainees. They were introduced to fans through their activities as "SM Rookies" before their official debut. The SM Rookies trainees later debuted in NCT, Aespa and four of them in Red Velvet.
In March 2014, Wendy released the soundtrack “Because I Love You” for the short drama “Mimi”, which starred Changmin from TVXQ, a boy band from her agency, as “Wendy from SM Rookies”. Already debuted SM artists such as Jonghyun and Taeyeon also sang soundtracks for the series.
Seulgi and Irene released a performance video for the song “Be Natural” by S.E.S in July 2014 under the name “SM Rookies _ SR14G”.
Additionally, Irene appeared in the music video “ 1-4-3 (i Love You) ” by Henry in 2013 and Seulgi appeared in the video “ Fantastic ”, also by Henry in 2014. The SM Rookies trainees have also appeared in SMTown shows, showing fans their talent months before their debut.
debut
Wendy, Irene, Seulgi and Joy - the latter was the only one not part of the “SM Rookies” - debuted on August 1, 2014 under the name Red Velvet with the single “ Happiness ”. The name “Red Velvet” stands for the duality of the group; “Red” represents the happy, lively energy of pop, while “Velvet” stands for their charming and sensual mood, which is mainly embodied by R&B. The concept of duality is evident in their albums, some of which clearly represent one of the two sides. For example, “The Red Summer” with the dancepop title song “ The Red Flavor ” or “The Velvet” with the midtempo R&B song “ One Of These Nights ” as the title track.
“Happiness” was the first debut song by a K-Pop girl group to make it into the “Billboard World Digital Song Charts” and even reached number 4 there. The music video was viewed over two million times on YouTube in the first 24 hours, but then due to controversial scenes that alluded to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the terrorist attack on September 11th. SM Entertainment apologized for the misunderstanding - the producer used a collage from an image source and thought nothing of it. Shortly after, a remastered version of the music video was uploaded.
In October, the digital single "Be Natural" was released, a remake of the original by S.E.S, for which Irene and Seulgi as SM Rookies released a performance video before their debut, as we mentioned above. The remake was recorded together with NCT's Taeyong, who was still an SM rookie at the time.
New member!
In February 2015, SM Entertainment announced that Red Velvet would no longer be a four-piece, but a five-piece! Two videos appear on YouTube that introduce Yeri, also a former member of the SM Rookies, as a new member of Red Velvet.
The first mini album “Ice Cream Cake” with the title song of the same name was released on March 17th. Three days earlier, a music video for “Automatic,” a song also included on “Ice Cream Cake,” was released, featuring Red Velvet as a five-piece for the first time.
SM Entertainment said of the addition of Yeri that she was supposed to debut with Red Velvet from the beginning, but was too young at 15 at the time. In fact, in the intro of the video for Happiness , hidden in the jungle, Yeri and six other girls identified by fans as members of the SM Rookies can be seen.
Some fans have even theorized that the other girls were supposed to be added to the group one by one, but the idea was canceled because Yeri received so much criticism. Quite a few were unhappy about her addition and criticized Yeri for being lazy and uncoordinated on stage.
Another theory claims that Red Velvet's debut was rushed to distract from the scandals SM Entertainment was involved in in 2014 - including Kris leaving EXO and filing a lawsuit against the agency, which caused a stir in the media. Defenders of this theory think that Yeri was unable to keep up with the short time Red Velvet had to prepare for the debut.
We'll probably never know for sure what's true, but despite the theories and criticism, Yeri has fit well into the group and fans today could hardly imagine Red Velvet without her.
Members
Now that we have gathered everyone together, we would like to briefly introduce the five singers to you:
| Stage name | Real name | Birthday |
|---|---|---|
| Wendy | Son Seungwan | 21.02.1994 |
| Joy | Park Sooyoung | 03.09.1996 |
| Irene | Bae Joohyun | 29.03.1991 |
| Seulgi | Kang Seulgi | 10.02.1994 |
| Yeri | Kim Yerim | 05.03.1999 |
In 2017, three years after their debut, the group announced that the fan club would be called “ReVeluv”. The name is made up of the first two letters of "Red" and "Velvet", and "Reve" means "dream" in French and is intended to express that ReVeluvs make Red Velvet's dreams come true. “Luv” represents the love that the fans and the group feel for each other.
If one thing is certain, it's that fans made some of Red Velvet's dreams come true:
On March 27, 2015, Red Velvet won their first music show with “Ice Cream Creak” and the album sold better than any other girl group album in the first half of 2015. The next album, “The Red”, achieved more than one high chart position and even topped the “Billboard World Albums Charts”, a success that Red Velvet was able to repeat with “Rookie”, “The Red Summer” and “Perfect Velvet” in 2017, among others. That same year the group held their first solo concert, originally for two days, but due to high demand another day was added. After three very successful albums in one year, no one doubts that Red Velvet is now one of the big ones.
At the end of 2018, Billboard even voted “Bad Boy” from the album “The Perfect Red Velvet”, which was released in January, as the best K-pop song of the year!
In 2020, Red Velvet represented the K-Pop Trolls in the animated musical film “Trolls World Tour”, which broke all streaming records, even performing their song “Roussian Roulette”. This is how they made it into countless living rooms around the world.
Who would win if you could vote for your favorite music in this battle?
Solo activities
In the seven years since their debut, the members of Red Velvet have of course also traveled individually.
Irene has been the exclusive face for various fashion and jewelry brands and in 2019 even became the first Asian to represent the Italian luxury jewelry brand “Damiani” as a muse. In addition, Irene is also active as an actress and made her acting debut in 2016 as the lead role in the web drama “Women at a Game Company”, followed by a role as a detective in the sitcom “Hello! Our Language” and the film “Double Patty”, for which she also sang the soundtrack “ A White Night ”.
Together with Seulgi, Irene is part of Red Velvet's first subunit, which released their first album " Monster " in 2020. Seulgi was part of the entertainment show "Idol Drama Operation Team" in 2017, in which the participants created their own series "Let's Only Walk The Flower Road", in which they played a fictional version of themselves and together embodied the fictional girl group "Girls Next Door". They even appeared on music shows with their song "Deep Blue Eyes".
Seulgi (Red Velvet), Moonbyul (Mamamoo), YooA (Oh My Girl), Sujeong (Lovelyz), Kim Sohee (Nature), D.ana (Sonamoo) & Jeon Somi (formerly I.O.I) as “Girls Next Door” with their song “Deep Blue Eyes”.
Yeri has been modeling for “AprilSkin Korea” since 2020, has released her own lipstick collection under the brand name “Colette” and starred in the web drama “Blue Birthday” in 2021.
As you can see, several members of Red Velvet have had acting experience, but Joy probably has the greatest career in the field. In 2017, she landed the female lead in the K-drama “The Liar and His Lover,” playing a high school student with a beautiful voice who forms a band with her two best friends. Joy sang several songs for the series, all of which are included on the official soundtrack album.
Another main role in "Tempted" followed in 2018 and a role in "Only One Person" is confirmed for 2021. Joy's participation in the reality show "We Got Married" is also particularly well-known, in which Korean celebrities are brought together to show what their life would be like as a married couple. Joy formed a pair with Yook Sung Jae from BtoB, with whom she recorded the song " Young Love " during the course of the show. Her first solo album " Hello " was released in May 2021.
A month earlier, Wendy released her first solo album “ Like Water ”, making her the first member of Red Velvet to have her own album. Before that, she had been absent from solo or Red Velvet for almost eight months because she fell more than two meters in a stage accident in December 2019 and suffered fractures in her pelvis, wrist and cheekbones. In addition to her solo album, Wendy also released a number of soundtracks, most recently “ Two Words ” for the series “Start-Up”.
Red Velvet as a group made a guest appearance in the hit series “Descendants Of The Sun” with their song “ Dumb Dumb ”.
Even if what we have told you here is far from everything, we hope that we were able to give you a concise overview of the history of Red Velvet and that nothing will stop you from raving about the girl group with other fans !
