Red Velvet is nominated for Best Group Performance (Female) for the 2022 KPOPREVIEWED Awards, while aepsa is nominated for Best Female Group of 2022. Support Red Velvet and aespa, along with your other favourite KPOP artsists, songs and performances by clicking here to vote today.

If you have not been made aware of it yet, we are currently in the festive month of December. So it is time to put those Santa outfits on and bring out the Christmas tree. Red Velvet and aespa have the right idea. They have joined hands for a collaborative single Beautiful Christmas, which dropped last week. This new single serves as the title track of the upcoming 2022 Winter SM Town: SMCU PALACE album that will drop the day after Christmas. I guess some of the songs are not exactly Christmas themed, which I believe was the case for last year’s SM Town album.

As per most Christmas-themed songs, Beautiful Christmas exudes a lot of that festive energy that brings a smile to my face. And you know me, I won’t say no to an upbeat track that makes me want to get up and have a boogie, which is also what Beautiful Christmas makes me want to do when it comes to the chorus (more on that in a second). It has the classic tropes of the Christmas holiday such as sleigh bells, Christmas carol references in the lyrics and twinkling percussion. But Beautiful Christmas also features some brass and some deep piano notes, which to me, added a fun vibe to the song. Going back to the chorus, I really enjoyed the sing-along shouty style of the first half of the chorus. It was simple to get right into and just radiated so much positive energy. But it is the second half of the chorus, with the shouty chant that wins me over. I also like how they broke it up between groups for the first two line, before coming together for a third line. Elsewhere, great vocals featured throughout the song, with Wendy and NingNing delivering the peak of Beautiful Christmas with their high notes. The rapping (in the second verse) was a little standard for my liking, but it still fitted into the song. As for the rap-speak in the bridge, that was cringy. My only other gripe about this song is the lyrics. Not something I usually pay attention to, but ‘To my friends and to my family, You mean to me the Christmas time” just doesn’t make any sense and sticks out a sore thump as it is the line that peaks off the song. And given that it delivered to us by Wendy who is a native English speaker, it is a bit embarrassing. But that is just me being picky. Overall, the upbeatness and energy of Beautiful Christmas just wins me over.

Christmas and Winter Wonderland are the two themes running throughout this video for quite obvious reasons. And it is a nice video to compliment the likes of Beautiful Christmas. I did notice a few things (both positive and negatives) that I want to point out. I found Yeri’s “I Like Winter” to be quite cringy when she sings that Winter. It is such an expected pun knowing that aespa was involved in this release, so it came as no surprise to me. NingNing really needs to loosen her facial muscles, particularly for that high note. It looked like she was disinterested from the whole thing at the point. It is quite disappointing, as she was pretty much all smiles throughout the video. Similarly, not too sure why there were some serious facial expressions throughout the video. It was not the time nor place for that! On the most positive side, I really liked the sets that were built for this music video. It all looked really cool and super detailed. I also liked the red dresses that both groups donned during some of the choreography scene. It looked very cute.

I don’t think the choreography for this release is supposed to be taken too seriously. But it is a simple routine that expressed the positivity and upbeatness of the song quite well. I pretty much enjoyed it.

Song – 8/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 8/10