Psycho (Red Velvet song)

During Red Velvet's appearance on Idol League in July 2019, member Irene confirmed that their upcoming plans for that year would include two more installments of The ReVe Festival trilogy, namely Day 2 and Finale, the former of which was later was released on August 20, 2019.[2] Following the group's third concert, La Rouge, in November 2019, SM Entertainment revealed two different teaser posters on social media at midnight of that year's December 12, along with an official press release which confirmed that Finale would conclude Red Velvet's "music festival" trilogy throughout 2019.[3] Two days later, the first batch of teaser photos were posted on the group's official social media accounts, including "Psycho" as the lead single for this release. The instrumental intro of the song was also revealed through their official Instagram posts before a 17-second video teaser for the song was uploaded to the official SMTOWN YouTube channel, with the music video being released the following day.[4]

"Psycho" was written by American producer Andrew Scott, EJAE, and frequently collaborator Cazzi Opeia during their songwriting camp in Seoul, South Korea. Following a conversation between the three composers about a breakup where "being heartbroken is almost like feeling psycho", they started working on the idea to come up with the song.[5] Having acknowledged Red Velvet's duality sonic concept, Scott wanted to "blend the two" concepts together. With the demo version recorded in English by Opeia that eventually leaked on the Internet weeks before the song's release, the lyrics were then rewritten in Korean by songwriter Kenzie, with additional arrangement from producer Druski, and Yoo Young-jin, the latter of which co-produced the group's previous single "Bad Boy" in 2018.

Musically, "Psycho" was described as an "up-tempo" urban song, while being characterized by Tamar Herman as an R&B-pop track with future bass, "grandiose operatic" instrumental intro with "dramatic" pizzicato strings, "classical" chords and "trap beats, squelching synths" elements, which made the song the group's seventh single to fall under the "Velvet" concept.[5][6] According to Scott, the chorus contains "the syncopation" of hi-hats, which is combined with the drum line to maintain the song's pace. It was composed in the key of Eb major with a tempo of 140 beat-per-minute.[7] The group's vocal range spanned about 2 octaves, from the low note of G3 to the high-note of G5. A slightly different version of the song was used for the music video, with the chorus having an additional synth line and the pre-chorus including a string melody, while the digital and streaming version omitted these elements. Lyrically, the song tells the story of a relationship "full of ups and downs", where a couple "fights so much that they appear crazy in the eyes of others but are nonetheless meant for each other" and eventually assures that "we're gonna be alright".[8]

Promotion activities for the song were rather limited comparing to Red Velvet's previous promotion cycles due to Finale being a year-end release. The group delivered their first live performance of "Psycho" at the ReVe Festival FINALE Party on December 22, 2019, which premiered exclusively on V Live with a limited participation for their fandom.[17][19] Red Velvet were then confirmed to attend the annual SBS Gayo Daejeon on December 25 of that year, scheduled to perform the single for the first time on television.[20] As fellow member Wendy suffered injuries during rehearsal, a pre-recorded performance was aired instead, which eventually led to the group having to perform as a quartet for their next attendance.[21] The remaining four members eventually covered all Wendy's singing parts for their live performance at the 29th Seoul Music Awards on January 30, 2020, where Red Velvet also won their fifth consecutive Main Award (Bonsang).[22]

Within the first 24 hours after its release, "Psycho" topped all 5 South Korean major digital charts and 16 iTunes digital charts in other countries.[23][24] Shortly later, the song achieved both "real-time all-kill" and "certified all-kill" respectively, making Red Velvet the first girl group and second overall for idol group to achieve such status in 2019. In the final week of December 2019, the song made its debut at number two on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart, where it stayed for three consecutive weeks. It became the group's first top 2 entry in 2019 and their first one since "Power Up", while becoming their 5th and 12th number 2 and top 10 entry overall, respectively.[25] The song went on to peak at number three on the January issue of the Gaon Monthly Digital Chart. In addition, it topped the Gaon Download Chart for two weeks, while peaking at number two for two weeks on the component Streaming Chart. The song also debuted at number nine on the Billboard K-Pop Hot 100 chart for the issue date of December 28, 2019.[26] The song then rose to number two for three weeks, earning the group their seventh top-five hit.

"Psycho" also attained success outside its home country. On the week of January 4, 2020, the song debuted atop the US Billboard World Digital Songs Chart, becoming Red Velvet's second chart-topper, following their 2018 single "RBB (Really Bad Boy)". This made them one of the nine K-pop artists to top the chart more than once, and the fourth girl group to do this.[27] Moreover, "Psycho" became their 16th top 10 entry, tying with the record of 2NE1 for a South Korean girl group that has the most top-ten entries on the chart. In addition, the song became Red Velvet's 2nd entry on the New Zealand Hot Singles chart after "Zimzalabim", entering at number 10 for the week of December 30, 2019.[28] It also debuted at number 99 on the UK Singles Downloads Chart for one week, becoming their first song to appear on a UK component chart.[29]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
IZM[30]

Following its initial release, "Psycho" was met with positive reviews from music critics. Tamar Herman of Billboard magazine viewed the track as "smooth and sultry in its delivery". In an individual song review, writer Kim Do-hyun of IZM called the track "an upgraded version" of "Bad Boy", praising the balance coming from "a great melody, interesting themes and performance" that crafted "a good song", while rating the track with three stars and a half out of five.[31] A review from Seoulbeats also complimented the song being "creative yet structured, catchy but unbalanced" to best represent the emotions driving it.[32] Moreover, writer Natalie Morin from Refinery29 praised the song's "updated, sophisticated glow" from its charm and swagger, while writer Kelly Sipko from The Kraze magazine called the song "insanely good", giving it a perfect score out of 10.[14][15] In a late interview with the song's producer in February 2020, writer Yim Hyun-su described the song as a "catchy earworm" and said the group "shows no signs of stopping anytime soon".[5]

Despite being a "year-end" release, "Psycho" made its appearance in several publication's year-end list, being cited as one of the best K-pop releases in 2019. Billboard magazine ranked the song number eighteen on their list, praising its "musical decorum" often missing from pop songs.[33] CelebMix magazine hailed the song as "one of the best releases" from the group, while ranking it at number six.[34] Furthermore, Malaysian L'Officiel magazine chose the song as one of their 14 K-Pop songs which defines 2019, citing it as a "go-to track to sing in the shower".[35]

Despite Red Velvet not attending nor performing at any television music show, "Psycho" managed to achieve a total of nine music show trophies by January 2020. Not only did the song become the group's second most-winning title track, tying with their 2017 single "Rookie", it was also their first to achieve the triple-crown status on all three national channels, namely Music Bank, Show! Music Core and Inkigayo.[38][39][40] The song also achieved two consecutive Melon Weekly Popularity Awards, due to its massive success on the digital chart.[41]

Credits adapted from the liner notes of The ReVe Festival: Finale.[48]

• Red Velvet (Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy, Yeri) – vocals, background vocals
• Kenzie – Korean songwriter, vocal director
• Andrew Scott – original writer, producer, programming, vocal production
• Moa Anna Carlebecker Forsell – original writer, background vocals
• EJAE – original writer, background vocals
• Druski – arrangement
• Yoo Young-jin – arrangement
• No Min-ji (SM SSAM Studio) – record director
• Jung Yu-ra – digital editor
• Lee Ji-hong (SM Lyvin Studio) – mix engineer
• Nam Goong-jin (SM Concert Studio Hall) – mixing engineer
• SKRT - mastering engineer

• List of number-one songs of 2020 (Singapore)
• List of Inkigayo Chart winners (2020)