April 19, 2013 – Last week Denmark was pulsing to the cavernous electronic pop of Panamah, a young trio whose third single "Børn Af Natten" quite deservingly landed at No. 1 on the Danish charts. If it sounds strikingly familiar, that's probably because the template is almost identical to the one used to such great effect by chilly British indie-electronic band the xx. Even fans of the xx would have to concede that there's a strict formula in play in their music — sparse percussion, simple chord progressions implied more than stated, and most importantly the hypersexual whispered interplay between dueling vocalists."Børn Af Natten" proceeds along at a tempo that's just a hair too fast for the xx, and this has the effect of tempering the depressing sinking feeling that emerges from the spaces between the beats.

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 Cobra Starship's "You Make Me Feel…" — but it’s a little more complex. The verses are handed off across the seven-member cast, Beasties-style, effectively one-note parts with minor-third embellishments; the chorus has the whole group working in unison to deliver soaring lines about dancing happily and reaching for the stars. And the marketing strategy has contrasts too.

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. 1 in so many other countries (currently: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, and Norway). In other words, apparently "Gangnam Style" has long since graduated to such a level of worldwide Internet saturation that Korean pop listeners have decided it's time to move on.Son Ga-In, a.k.a "Gain," is by far Psy's most exciting successor yet, a bleach-blonde singer who just turned 25 and was previously best known as a member of a popular pop quartet Brown Eyed Girls.

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. The track was pretty much Frankensteined into being: The title track from his 2008 debut album welded to a drum machine by a DJ from Berlin and then promptly fed through a blender to expose propulsive juices so compelling that they seem like they were the point all along. You can hear a lot of the same sort of excited polishing as you'll find on Cat Power's recent Sun, both composers quite obviously inspired by the possibility of further animating their songs through a meticulous attention to detail.

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. They're down to a quartet these days, and all the remaining members have aged from tween-dream up to cool-uncle, so this summer they've decided to celebrate their longevity and newfound seniority by releasing a greatest hits comp with a deluxe edition that includes a third disc of all-new material. The single "Chankapana" has become the main marketing hook for both the album and the group's new configuration, and it has performed admirably on the Oricon pop chart, claiming the No. 1 slot upon its initial release in late July. The title is a term of endearment, so "Chankapana" is fittingly stuffed with equal amounts of starry-eyed kitsch and sugary syrups.

July 31, 2012 – Lady Gaga hasn't dropped a major single this year, and maybe that monster void is why pop star Svetlana Loboda has been able to dominate the charts in her native Ukraine lately with her No. 1 hit "Облака." Loboda has been on top for almost two months now, filling the Gaga gap and possibly benefitting from a burst of nationalist pride (especially considering all the other entries in the top 10 are by foreign Eurovision alumni). Nonetheless, "Облака" still has the hallmarks of any successful club hit: weird little production flourishes, an elaborate video treatment, and an irresistible whistling melody that is more "Monster" than "Young Folks." The Russian lyrics might pose a bit of a problem for some audiences — we can't roll our R's, can you?