"In Defense of Noise: SM Future Sound and Red Velvet" is a great read:
The first half of 2019 have seen Red Velvet flex their musical muscles to varying degrees of reception. Being one of a few SM acts in which founder and SM’s largest shareholder Lee Sooman (LSM) is …
seoulbeats.com
Here are some excerpts:
Red Velvet’s unique vocal technique also manifests itself in 2019’s most polarizing song, “Zimzalabim” which uses the girls’ voices to tinker with the registers in the chorus — the chanting chorus is done low and then high and then higher the way one would chant a mantra to oneself first and then to others and then to all. Yet, the crème de la crème is the vocal Olympics that is “RBB,” Red Velvet’s most avant-garde work so far. “RBB” is not a chart-topper and is not the friendliest sing-along number, but it marks a point in Red Velvet’s career where they prove they can make music out of cacophonies. Somewhere in their graves, Schoenberg and Cage are smiling.
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However, post-SMTown Live 2019 in Tokyo, I was completely baffled as to how SM, who had Taeyeon, Luna, and Wendy on the same stage, appeared to have no inkling, if at all, to assemble them in a super project. I would love to see Red Velvet be taken seriously into SM’s business planning in addressing, for instance, JYP’s shrewd strategy of sending Twice to fill the spot that SNSD has left vacant — and Itzy for Blackpink’s infrequent appearance, on that note. And if SM were to insist on breaking into the US market still, I could not see how under-using an act who, collectively, has worked with Ricky Martin, John Legend, and Ellie Goulding is a wise decision. Red Velvet, after all, is at home with the sound of America past.