Summer Magic is the second special extended play and the seventh overall by South Korean girl group Red Velvet, marketed as their special "summer" EP following The Red Summer, which was released in July 2017. The EP is also the group's third major release to focus on their "Red" concept, following The Red Summer and the group's debut studio album The Red (2015). Released on August 6, 2018, the EP contains seven tracks,[2] including the lead single "Power Up" and the English version of "Bad Boy" as a bonus track, making it their first song to be released in English.
The EP was a commercial success domestically and internationally, topping South Korea's
After the release of their first Japanese extended play
#Cookie Jar, the group's company SM Entertainment announced in July that Red Velvet would release their new "summer mini album" in August. Osen reported that the members finished filming the music video for the single "Power Up" in Gyeonggi Province on July 19 and days later, SM Entertainment revealed that the EP would be released on August 6 and was titled Summer Magic.[6] Member Yeri stated they were also doing concerts amidst preparations for the album, which put them on a really tight schedule.[7]
Composition
The lead single "Power Up" is described by
PopCrush as an upbeat song with a "melody reminiscent of 8-bit-style video games" with lyrics that express a "work hard, play harder" theme; it is the group's second summer single after "Red Flavor".[8] During the press conference for their second solo concert 'REDMARE' at the Olympic Park's handball arena in southeastern Seoul on August 5, member Yeri likened the melody to the tune of a Tetris game, stating that she "thought it's exactly the song you should listen to in summer" since it is "energizing and can play in the background for driving". Meanwhile, member Wendy compared it to their first summer single "Red Flavor" which was released in 2017 and admitted she "wasn't very impressed at first" but added "the more I listened to the song, the more energy of a different sort it gave me".[9] The EP contains six other tracks, including an English version of "Bad Boy" which the group previously performed for the first time at KCON 2018 in New York in June of the same year. The song marks the group's first English-language release.[10]
Claire Chung of
urban pop dance song featuring a rhythmic synth base and bubbly background sounds.[11]
Release and promotion
To promote the EP, a series of image teasers were released on July 29, 2018, through the group's official social media accounts. SM Entertainment also launched an interactive game on their official site.[10] Before its official release, the group performed the new songs from the album during their second concert 'REDMARE' on August 5, 2018, revealing them to the public for the first time.[12]
The EP was released on August 6 worldwide, with the
The EP received good reviews from critics in the group's home country, South Korea. Hong Dam-young of The Korea Herald opined that the EP proved that Red Velvet "does not linger in the past, but instead takes itself to the next level". He then added that the group lived up to their title "summer queens" and that the EP "is rife with all the elements that will elevate your mood". However, he also stated that one might need to repeat the title track "Power Up" a few times to fully vibe with it, but eventually it will have the listener "humming the song's quirky chorus anytime, anywhere, especially the part where the vocals hum "Banana-na-na" on top of the quirky chiptune".[22] Similarly, Claire Chung of Haps Magazine initially found the song "a bit childish" but thought "the youthful, refreshing summer atmosphere of the music is infectious" and said she later found herself "subconsciously singing the song's addictive hook line". She also singled out the urban pop dance track "Blue Lemonade" as her favorite from the EP.[11]
Seung Park of Kotaku remarked that the group "stepped up to fill a sorely-needed niche in k-pop" and called Red Velvet "Orange Caramel's spiritual successors as the resident purveyors of the quirky and weird".[23]
