#1 CRUSH

December 7, 2012 – The top slot of the Oriconchart, the primary ranking system for music sales in Japan, is currently occupied by "Ai No Beat" the latest single from the boy band Kis-My-Ft2, whose name is cobbled together as an acronym from the transliterated initials of its seven members and then poorly approximated as "Kiss My Foot Two." At first blush it feels like deliberately trashy dance-pop — especially with a melody seemingly cribbed straight from

October 30, 2012 – Korean rapper PSY's runaway smash-of-smashes "Gangnam Style" is set to reach a historic one billion YouTube views by Christmas. The continued American attention should buy the man a pretty sweet yacht, but at this point he's actually flopping around a bit on the charts back in Korea, especially given that he's been sitting at No.

September 14, 2012 – The new single from Israeli singer and guitarist Asaf Avidan, "One Day/Reckoning Song [Wankelmut Remix]," is a worldwide smash, recently hitting the No. 1 spot in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and Austria.

August 22, 2012 – Korean pop's American conquest has taken a very Paris turn. Sure, K-pop stars Girls Generation performed earlier this year on late-night TV, and their countryfolk 2NE1 conquered Times Square this past December.

August 16, 2012 – Tokyo pop group N.E.W.S. has been flourishing under the watchful eye of Japanese boy band kingpin Johnny Kitagawa for close to a decade now despite some substantial lineup changes.

August 16, 2012 – This morning the Internet was convinced Ke$ha had written a fierce letter to Lady Gaga about wearing fur.