STELLAR’s ‘Sting’ Proves The K-Pop Girl Group Ought To Be Bigger

It's difficult to keep up with the breakneck pace of K-Pop girl groups debuting and disappearing (not to mention their ever-shifting member lineups), but every now and then, a group stands out among the dozens of troupes all vying for your money — err, love.

Although the quartet's been around on the scene since 2011, STELLAR have only ever managed to scratch the surface with minor hits like "Rocket Girl," "Marionette" and "Vibrato" over the past few years, along with their debut EP Marionette, which came in at a modest No. 19 on the Gaon Album Chart. (Good, but no SISTAR.)

That likely has something to do with their image: Unlike some of the more modest South Korean girl groups, STELLAR aren't afraid to get overtly sexy. The group caught heat in the past for their unsubtle displays of their sexuality, including their "Marionette" music video. (Controversial queens, indeed.)

Still, they're moving onward and upward: At the end of 2015, the girls launched a Makestar (a crowdfunding initiative similar to Kickstarter) to fund the release of their second mini-album Sting. Evidently, the STELLAR fanbase is a quality over quantity situation, considering they managed to cover the group's expenses (and then some!) in a mere three days.

This week, the girls dropped their Sting EP, along with the video for their chill, flirty and entirely #ontrend Trop-House pop midtempo title track, which is equal parts seductive and strange.

The visual is a shoe fetishist's paradise, as the girls stretch out across their bedroom floors among their myriad pairs of stilettos and get "stung" all over their exposed limbs by little nuisances. How often are you getting poked by your computer mouse's cursor in real life? Or is that a metaphor for their controversy-baiting clickbait status? Perhaps, perhaps...

Missing that standard girl group choreography? Mercifully, the girls reserve the last minute of the "Sting" video to give us a quick display of their moves in their bright leggings.

That's only scratching the surface: The rest of the EP, including "Vibrato," "Love Spell" and "Insomnia" (the production of which sounds something like Disclosure's "Latch")  is every bit as solid as the title track.

And while they might be considered a bit "much" by the more conservative mainstream because of their refusal to tone down their image, here's hoping STELLAR finally gets their shot at superstardom — and stay just as sexy as they please.