The Singles Jukebox

Urge to photograph bee stings on video screenshot rising rising rising…

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[7.33]

Jessica Doyle: In Korean idol pop, “fanservice” usually includes making an uninhibited fool of yourself on camera, so that the viewer can say, awww that’s my uninhibited fool. This goes for both male and female groups — the fast gains in popularity by BTS and Mamamoo have a lot to do with Bangtan Bombs and videos like this one, respectively. So part of the problem I’ve had with Stellar has been not just the squick-inducing marketing gimmicks and the crotch shots, but the seeming paucity of anything goofy and humanizing to balance it out: even people who want to call out Stellar as the group that keeps getting exploited know them as The Group That Keeps Getting Exploited, rather than as four women with individual personalities. I’m more comfortable with “Sting,” with its more relaxed choreography, admittedly funny alternate dance-practice videos, and official evidence that Hyoeun is in charge of faces. None of this has anything to do with the song, which is less powerful than “Vibrato” but peppy and coherent, except for the question of whether enjoying the song is buying into a practice of turning people into playthings; a question which Stellar, for all their skills and their well-crafted songs, are still worse than most groups at helping you ignore.
[6]

Madeleine Lee: Crisp and shimmering, with a bubbly chorus and a snappy talk-rap bridge, this is about as perfect as pop construction gets. This is true whether you find the idea of “perfect pop” thrilling or boring, because “Sting” is both. What’s missing is the tension and propulsion of “Vibrato,” the lack of which initially caused me to underrate this song. The other reason I underrated it is my skepticism about the group’s ongoing exploitation-to-meta about exploitation arc, until I remembered that this has nothing to do with the song or Stellar’s fine performance of it.
[6]

Alfred Soto: I award this track a passing grade for the sequencer/horn syncopation and the rhythm guitar strumming in the second half. The vocals are too feather-light.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: The line “Judas kiss or what?” — the only lyric in English that gets repeated — sums up the tone of this single nicely. Stellar may sound all sweet and light, but they’re pissed off at your wrong ways, boys, so don’t fuck with them. Their admonitions go down much more easily thanks to the percolating, bouncy pop backing them up, however, complete with a bridge featuring some Nile Rodgers-esque chicken-scratch guitar. This has an altogether breezy, summer-singalong air to it which helps it rise above.
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: I am not sure what a “Judas Kiss” is, but its attached to some of the most well constructed boogie-funk with mild flourishes of house and EDM I’ve heard since Jimmy Edgar’s XXX. Considering I was more or less cold on “Vibrato” for all its jarringness, that twitchy energy is exactly what makes “Stellar” have cheek and suppleness. It works so much harder with seemingly half the sense of urgency.
[8]

Mo Kim: “Do my words sting?” they ask, punctuating the last word of the question with a sharp melodic dissonance. Elsewhere they’re all veiled smiles and cotton-candy sparkle, but there is a edge to Stellar’s performance that wires the entire thing electric, probing their audience just beyond the comfort of the track’s easy-going groove. And oh, it stings as good as anything they’ve done yet.
[10]

Brad Shoup: Bone-dry synthfunk is probably the right style to get me from winter to
spring. It glares like a high sun, but there’s a little swing struggling
to wriggle out.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I feel like I say this about every single pop single by an Asian group that gives me early 90s techno pop vibes and is generally amazing, but I hear this the same way I hear the tracks from Sonic CD that represent the utopian future where everything is bright and beautiful. I love how the sounds I associate with Japanese pop from the 90s have been incorporated, souped-up and made to sound thrillingly modern. Quite aside from that there’s a song on top, and it’s terrific too — twisting on an edge between funky and chilled with nagging, clipped verses and slick choruses that poke and prod and tickle.
[9]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Despite a chorus that lacks in impact (I still believe their vocal abilities are a bit underutilized), the complex chord progressions and the way the production makes them seem so smooth are remarkable. The synth-bass/slap bass combination in the verses is beautiful, but what makes Stellar special is the way these girls build a bridge. In the case of “Sting”, the funky guitar and downward chromatic slide are noteworthy, and although these are not the kind of bold stylistic decisions that made “Vibrato” such a game-changer, they give the song another angle, a movement the song really needed. 
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