Playlist: Primary wins the K-pop Summer Wars; plus Stellar, F.Cuz, Hotshot, Nine Muses

Ah, summer in ROK. It should be a laidback time of pretty girls in denim cut-offs and handsome boys with multi-coloured hair in unflattering knee-length shorts. Instead  the pop stars are engaged in a brutal battle to see who can gain the top spot with the balmiest tune. While some think the key is to sing "summer" over and over again (Hey, NS Yoon G) and others are taking trips to tropical Thailand for their MVs, still others are looking to Europe and techno and EDM (Nine Muses, AOA, Hello Venus. Beast ...), because everyone goes clubbing in summer, I guess?

PRIMARY - Don't Be Shy

Well everyone can just chill out now because Primary has won the summer wars with Don't Be Shy, a flawless lovers' rock track featuring AOA's Choa. Her breathy vocal adds a touch of melancholy longing to the gentle Jamaican rhythm which Primary plays pretty straight, from the dub bass to the echoing sideshots. The b-side, a jazz-funk number featuring Mamamoo's Hwa Sa, could easily have been a stand-out a-side were it not for such stiff competition. Primary already dropped two great tracks this year; the album should be killer.

STELLAR - Guilty

After crushing so badly on Vibrato, I went back to Stellar's Marionette album and discovered this mind-shatteringly brilliant track from the same composer, Hwang Hyun (Kara's Idiot). It starts off with a lone, mournful violin; it sounds like it's going to be a tango, before the violin cuts off and a pulsing percussion begins. The lachrymose air continues as the strings swell then suddenly the bass thunders and it takes a menacing turn. The arranging is absolute genius; from the complexity of the strings to the tension in the bass and percussion. Better than Marionette and a rival for Vibrato.

NINE MUSES - Someone Like You

Classic Nine Muses from E.One, who has written a bunch of hits, but Kara's magnificent Cupid is the most recent and therefore the most relevant. This has the Nine Muses hallmark - without actually really sounding like their other songs; a trait which has always been their strength. Glue and Dolls are both obviously Nine Muses songs, but don't really sound alike. Even the quirky carnival tune Drama fits the bill. Who else would have recorded a song like that and made it theirs? This is a super-fun, smile-inducing nu-disco track.

F.CUZ - Don't Touch

This is like if MBLAQ covered U Kiss' Quit Playing and there is nothing wrong with that. It's smooth like a salted caramel milkshake but there's a groove to kick it out of ballad territory and into a slow jam, plus a nice meandering moog in the background. F.Cuz is one of the stupider names in a scene of stupid names - it's apparently F.Cuz as in "focus", not F.Cuz as in "eff off, cuz, you're an effing idiot". They have the usual tragic rookie tale of changing labels and bandmembers but this could do well for them, provided some juggernaut from the Big 3 doesn't come along and ride all over them.

HOTSHOT - I'm a Hotshot

This is a sneaky one. On one level, it's just a standard boy band track: we want to show we can sing close harmonies, but we don't want to be too soft; we can bring the hip-hop! There's a siren going off, and booming synth bass and some iteration of trap at various intervals. But then there's honeyed harmonies and a really decent melody - a lack of which has ruined songs like this before. It's worth a shot [boom tish].