K-pop singer Seulgi — famously known as the main dancer and lead vocalist of K-pop girl group Red Velvet — released her title track “28 Reasons” along with a music video for her debut EP on Oct. 4. It serves as a perfect opener to the Halloween season in its exploration of good, evil, and everything in-between.
The beginning of “28 Reasons” greets viewers with four electrical pulses, delivering shock-like sensations to the ears. It is a stunning opener, providing just the right amount of eeriness to set the strange tone for the entirety of the song. To start off the video, Seulgi is seen waking up alone in a field, wearing a white dress with blood smattered on her neck. She croons, “I kiss your brother / I steal that heart.”
With “28 Reasons,” Seulgi moves away from Red Velvet’s typical bubbly yet sultry sound as heard in the Halloween-themed dance pop “RBB (Really Bad Boy)” and elegantly dark R&B “Psycho” in favor of building upon the foundation laid by “Monster,” a subunit track sung by Seulgi and fellow Red Velvet member Irene. In “Monster,” the two women take on the role of a monster — reveling in the power of tormenting someone. They sing about trapping someone in an inescapable dream over a dubstep-influenced beat, accompanied by a wailing instrumental and strong percussion.
Seulgi goes a bit farther in “28 Reasons” by taking on a different approach to creating a haunting mood. The album trailer uses a multitude of dimly lit shots filled with references to various horror movies and superstitions.
One scene shows nails being cut in the pitch black of the night. According to Japanese superstition, doing this creates a path through which bad spirits can enter your body. Fans have also pointed out that the shots of a rugged Seulgi in the woods refers to the South Korean horror film “The Wailing,” in which a policeman investigates a series of brutal murders in a remote village. Even without knowledge of these references, the ominous whistling that plays over shots of Seulgi running down the hallways of an abandoned school and standing in front of a fiery explosion is enough to send a chill up anyone’s spine.
Everything in “28 Reasons” feels calculated — this does not render the track as predictable and boring, but rather evokes the feeling of a supervillain meticulously planning every step of their evil scheme. The percussion feels creepy-crawly, clean snaps and snares broken up by the pulsing bass of the introduction. The instrumental is sparse, primarily consisting of barely-pitched pulses, dramatic strings in the chorus or all-knowing whistles punctuating every line.
Seulgi carries most of the song’s melody in her voice, allowing it to ebb and flow with the intensity of the song. The best example of this comes in the bridge, which begins with her singing sweetly, “I swear I need you, my desires are growing / I’m playing with you like a kid,” moving into a haunting spoken interlude (“You’re in danger / But it’s okay / You’re grown up”) before breaking into a powerful series of belts.
The music video mimics this intentional vocal contrast, showing two versions of Seulgi: one in the white dress waking up in a field and another dressed in all-black waking up chained to a mattress in what appears to be an abandoned building.
“The music video draws out the self-conflict unfolding inside a dream. I show the good and bad conflicting with each other as I dream,” Seulgi said in a press conference.
These two conflicting selves tie into what appears to be the thesis of the EP, written in red at the end of the music video: “Good and evil people are not clearly distinguished. Good and evil coexist within one person. Even if one seems good, greed and temptation always exist together inside. We simply try to resist from being captivated by evil.”
Seulgi plays with this idea in the EP’s second track, “Dead Man Runnin’,” in which she is the primary lyricist. The song seems to be told from a similar perspective to “Monster,” as Seulgi sings about the cold emptiness within her by declaring, “The world is dragged into darkness / But not enough to stop me / It’s a fun game.” The highlight of the song is Seulgi’s soaring vocals, particularly her raw and emotional belts of the words “Dead man runnin’” in the chorus.
The next track is considerably lighter, as South Korean rapper Be’O joins Seulgi on the more upbeat “Bad Boy, Sad Girl.” The lyrics seem to discuss two sides of a mismatched relationship, as Seulgi discusses feeling like a “sad girl” due to the vague signals being sent by the titular “bad boy.”
“Anywhere But Home” is tinged with familiarity and longing. Like Sofi de la Torre’s “Vermillion” or Mitski’s “Brand New City.” It is about feeling out of place in what is meant to be your home. There is a sort of melancholy as Seulgi sings, “Please take me anywhere but home.”
The penultimate track “Los Angeles” is meant to be danced to, as the verses continuously build tension that ultimately releases like a spring in the post-chorus beat drop. In the chorus, Seulgi plays with the sounds of the words that she’s singing in the tongue twister of a hook, “I’m lost in Los Angeles, oh, I’m, oh I’m loving it.”
As the last song on the album, “Crown” feels like it slowly drags itself forward with a clear rhythm to every line. Seulgi sings about knowingly being trapped in an illusion but enjoying it as long as she gets to be with the “you” that she sings about. In a stark reversal of “28 Reasons,” Seulgi no longer seems to be the one holding the power as she sings, “I don’t care, you lie-ie-ie, lie-ie-ie” and “I’m one and only, I’m one and only and I’m with you.”
The cohesiveness of the EP and its dedication to the central theme of good and evil makes for a hauntingly evocative listening experience. Each track plays to Seulgi’s strengths as Red Velvet’s main dancer and lead vocalist, having some degree of danceability and purposeful vocal performances.
All in all, “28 Reasons” is a promising debut, allowing Seulgi’s artistic vision to clearly manifest in every part of the album rollout.
Teresa Pham is an Entertainment Intern for the fall 2022 quarter. She can be reached at teresaap@uci.edu.