Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Commemorative Mimesis and Vocal Assertion in Red Velvet’s Borrowing of J. S. Bach’s Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3

Abstract In the syncretic eclecticism of K-pop song production, the quotation of themes from classical works has become a recurrent trope. This paper examines the case of Red Velvet’s borrowing of the Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 by J. S. Bach, BWV 1068 in their hit single “Feel My Rhythm” (2022). In this elaborate reworking, substantial parts of the original counterpoint were paraphrased using techniques reminiscent of historic musical practice. Drawing on Carolyn Abbate’s conceptualization of the musical tombeau, the analysis proposed here contextualizes “Feel My Rhythm” as an act of commemorative mimesis whose invocation of the past occurs on several different levels of the audiovisual assemblage. Reading the song as a negotiation of power relations between multiple authorial voices, the analysis considers ways in which the commemorative gesture invests the idols with vocal agency and authority.