STELLAR dropped “Sting” on all of us late yesterday, and while the song was a bit disappointing after the promising teaser, at least the music video served something up worthwhile.

Musically, “Sting” was solid if a bit unspectacular. I understand that the softer feel was somewhat necessary to fit the concept, but they’ve done much better than this before, and it’s more “Mask” than “Vibrato” or “Marionette“. The bridge probably should’ve been the chorus, because there wasn’t much else in the song to really attach to, and the downshift for the hook wasn’t obvious enough to really provide any type of anti-jolt appeal to the track.

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On the surface level, I suppose the music video is also rather plain, but Digipedi fulfilled STELLAR’s meta queen destiny, which kept me engaged to see how far they would go with the voyeur-dol/gravure-dol concept.

From the photographer constantly snapping away to the two-way mirror to the mouse icon(s) stalking them, the message is obvious, but I would argue that since so many didn’t even get the gist of “Vibrato”, STELLAR could’ve gone a lot stronger and in-your-face with it.

The music video generally seemed to equate in-person privacy violations with online privacy violation, which makes sense for STELLAR since the latter is what the group have been dogged by non-stop ever since “Marionette”.

People say they hate exposure, but in the end what they really want is more. More exposure, more access, and more information about their idols.

The lyrics are ostensibly about talking shit to an ex-boyfriend, and I’m sure they are on one level, but it’s not hard to see where the mouse arrow imagery and their history with online critics come into play in certain lines (especially since this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had a go at them).

“Do my words make you feel something? Do you have a guilty conscience? Are you tired of our relationship? You can’t hide, you always show yourself.”

“You talk bullshit every time you open your mouth, nobody wants to hold you, sorry. I’m sorry.”

Savage.

While I’m not the biggest fan of the song, everything else that goes into STELLAR’s “Sting” makes it worthwhile and definitely entertains one way or another.

The problem with STELLAR, though, is that they just don’t seem to ever be able to breakthrough, and I’m skeptical that this will be the song to do it. It’s not catchy enough of a tune to go viral, and the concept of the music video is not upfront and blatantly obvious enough to invite controversy.

Sigh.