It is time for the first JPOP review of 2019. And starting of the JPOP rush for this year is Red Velvet with their brand new single, Sappy. The popular female group made their Japanese debut last year with #Cookie Jar, the title for both their debut single and mini-album. Since then, the group returned to Korea to release and promote Power Up and RBB.

Sappy has a lot going on and that is partly due to the instrumental of the song. But let’s backtrack for a moment and go from the start. I am not a fan of how they started off the song. It started off with straightforward hushed vocals singing ‘Sappy Boy‘ with the repetitive trumpet as its main attraction. That was okay. But the instrumental break that follows right after felt overwhelmingly messy. And, to me at least, felt off tune and disconnected. Moving along to the verses, I can see signs of an improvement in sound. It was extremely crisp and didn’t feature anything that I thought was off tune. I did notice their vocals seemed to be weighed down and that their voices had a lower tone. Don’t know why but I am not too bothered by it. The chorus came along and it too was a tad overwhelming at first with its many layers in the instrumentation. But it has since grown on me and I thought it provides a nice burst of energy and sweetness to the song. It was also quite catchy. So overall, Sappy was quite nice with the exception of that part.

Suiting the song and the group perfectly is the brightly coloured music video. It starts off as a standard music video, with the normal close up shots of the girls doing things. And then the music video becomes like a ‘Spot the Difference’ game. Come to the think of it, what was the concept for this comeback/music video? It does seem a little over the place, like the song at times.

I wasn’t impressed with their last Japanese dance. But this, it was good. I liked all of it, which I thought was fitting for the song. To match the fast tempo of the chorus, their moves became liked quick jerks, which I thought looked really cool. And then when the song slowed down, they moved into slower and wider motions, which was a good progression.

Song – 7/10
Music Video  – 6/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 6.9/10