Song Review:: Joy (Red Velvet): From JOY, with Love- Love Splash

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  • Release date: 2025 August 18

  • Album tracklist: Love Splash!, Get Up And Dance, La Vie En Bleu, Unwritten Page, Scent of Green, Cuddle

  • Album runtime: 20 minutes

 So this is apparently her first mini album, which is exciting for all of us. This isn't her solo debut though. Not that I think it really matters, but regardless, it's still exciting. Red Velvet in general have phenomenal voices, so I'm looking forward to this. But also, there isn't a single song on this album that is shorter than three minutes, so everyone! Listen to the album on principle of not having any ridiculous songs!

The song has a bit of a dreamy swirl moving through it occasionally.  It's a very pretty song. There are bits with a somewhat strong beat that give the song a stronger flavor, but overall, the blend is quite nice. There are spaces in the song where it would make sense for the choreography to be a little bit stronger, which I'm hoping is the case. It's a very summery song, although I'd classify it more as an early summer song because there isn't quite the saturation that I associate with late summer, which is when we're at. But it's definitely a summer song, not a spring song. In places where the instrumentals are stronger, they're places where it makes sense for the vocals to be more supported. For the most part. The chorus does make me raise my eyebrows a little bit. Shout out to the splashing at the end, however. Sets the mood. It would have been cool to have it in both the beginning and the end, but this is good enough.

She actually has a really sweet voice. Joy is an appropriate name for her. While her voice isn't thoroughly allowed to flourish, she's got both a range in pitch and in tone for Love Splash, which is something that I am fully supportive of. It's not the right tone for me to necessarily add to a regular listening playlist, but I will absolutely add it to my summer one. This is just a matter of personal taste. Objectively, the only problem I'm seeing here is that we don't get anything big vocally, but there's variation and enough bits that allow her to show off that she's got a lot of skill with her voice.  

Okay, so that was one of the cutest music videos I've seen in a while. And it's a full story of a summer spent with fun and enjoyment, including a summer romance made better by the fact that the entire music video is not about the summer romance. A significant chunk of it is about her friendship with her girls and their fun and chaos that they have together. It's fun. It's cute. It's relatable. The storyline is clear. We don't have a whole lot of choreography to work with, but that's okay because the storyline is so strong.



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