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Michael Telo.

Courtesy of the artist

Michael Telo.

NFL stars have been known to break it down in the endzone — we'll undoubtedly see a few dance moves in the vicinity on Sunday. But footballers elsewhere in the world have their own routine lately, set to the unofficial anthem of that game where you do it with no hands. It's called "Ai Se Eu Te Pego (When I Catch You)," Brazilian singer Michel Telo's Euro-smash of last summer. And it's sitting tight at Number 4 on the Brazilian charts.

These days, any time a footballer scores — outside America, so far — you can bet the players will be bouncing and bromancing round the pitch to the cheery strains of Telo's tune. So far, there have been 24 reported sightings of footballers freaking out to "Ai Se Eu Te Pego" — from the Russian Football League to AC Milan and Swansea, Wales. This particular footie fetish phenomenon (it's not the first time soccer stars have choreographed their celebrations to a pop hit) dropped when Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo scored the first goal against Malaga in October of last year and broke into an impromptu victory dance with teammate Marcelo Vieira; now the song even has an all-football video featuring Telo with such masters of the ball as Ronaldo, Marcelo, Reus, Robinho, Pato, Boateng and Neymar, credited as the first player to have bopped to the tune in a game.

But it's more than just Telo's supple delivery or even the super-singalong hook that has made "Ai Se Eu Te Pego" so beloved. This pop ditty flaunts its roots; maybe no surprise as it hails from Salvador, Bahia, the most African part of Brazil, famous for its drummers. Written by two Bahians, Sharon Acioly and Antônio Dyggs of Os Meninos de Seu Zeh, the song's drum patterns mirror the "Bam Bam" riddim beloved in Jamaican dancehall.

The song was quickly adopted and recorded by a series of Bahia musicians. Realizing he had a monster on his hard drive, Dyggs took the song to golden boy Michel Telo.

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Nx Zero.

Courtesy of the artists

Nx Zero.

Right away, from their name alone, you know the dudes in Nx Zero have to be punks. After ten terrific years, the Brazilian emo-core band — singer Diego Ferrero, guitarists Filipe Ricardo and Leandro Rocha, drummer Daniel Weksler and bassist Conrado Grandino — recently celebrated with a big TV special and a DVD compilation that includes their current No.4 on the charts, "Não é Normal" — "Nothing is Normal." And while Nx Zero's sound may have changed over the years, when you hear Ferrero start to confide that these days, nothing is normal, you instantly know that the counterculture's old friend, Angst, is in the house.

Traditionally, punk likes to align with the Negative: Richard Hell's Voidoids and their Blank Generation, the Sex Pistols' No Future. The same applies in Brazil, where the seminal mid-1970s punk band protesting the military regime were called Restos de Nada — Remains of Nothing.

Rather confusingly, fans in Brazil acclaim "Nothing is Normal" as Nx Zero's return to a folk form that they never seemed to represent — their earlier work is often on the melodic end of hardcore. But this slab of unadorned acoustic soul couldn't get more authentic, which is key to punk. The very low-key video features the five ordinary blokes sitting around in an anonymous room, all playing guitars, visually jazzed up with some busy split-screen integrating un-touristy urban streets. The message says: us superstars still jam at home and it's not all beaches in Brazil. In its very quietude, the video indicates Nx Zero's urge to withdraw from their regular massive stadium performances, earned by years and yards of awards, and take it back to the bedsit.

The intimacy of their harmonies suggests that this love song may be bromantic, too: "Know that every time you leave/ A part of me goes too/ This is not normal/ A day without you is an eternity for me/ This is not normal..."

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Vera Brezhneva, whose song 'Real Life' is at No. 8 on the Russian pop charts.

Courtesy of the artist

Vera Brezhneva, whose song 'Real Life' is at No. 8 on the Russian pop charts.

Can't be bothered to sit through the interminable romantic travelogue of Eat, Pray, Love? Just watch the video that's at No. 8 on the Russian pop charts. With a breezy hum-along chorus that could be a folk song from the steppes, Vera Brezhneva's "Real Life" is a dance charmer. To sing her vision of peace and love, Brezhneva sweet 'n' sours the galloping electro steel pans with a wistful minor note, a near-polka modality that intrigues.

Presumably to keep the Buddha always with us, Vera also chose to shoot her video in the colorful streets and temples of Cambodia and Vietnam. Flirting with a stylishly unshaven hunk, she cuts quite a figure with her flowing blond mane and sweeping white robes. It's a change to see Vera so covered up, as you can chart her artistic growth by the semiotics of her previous bikinis.

Some feminists might think this approach gross. Thing is, even as a straight chick, I can see why Vera should wear a bikini as part of her job; to deny the fact would be like asking Matthew McConaughey putting on his shirt whenever photographers were around — a waste. Anyway, Vera disrobed looks fit, not anorexic or fake. She's the kind of gal who men lust after and girls actually like. We just lust after her abs. Come on, you know you mustn't hate people because they're beautiful.

"Am I clear?" demands the ad slogan for Sarah. Well, I think so. If ever an artist burst out on message, it is 16-year old Danish artist Sarah (born Sarah Skaalum Jørgensen), whose second single, "Okay," entered the Danish charts the week before last and now is at number two. Husky-voiced Scandipop star Sarah is known for being the winner of the Danish talent TV show The X Factor in March of this year; and mostly, she's known for being gay.

No valuable victory comes without conflict. In famously open-minded Denmark, though she's "teenage lesbian Sarah" in every story, her sexual orientation is not a problem. But the Danish media seem to feel that Sarah's massive support in the international gay media has given her an unfair advantage over less well-connected straights, like a member of Yale's Skull & Bones Club getting political power. That flurry of sniping soon faded into another argument: too much attention being paid to Sarah's sexuality and not enough talk about her singing. Which segued neatly into a further Sarah Scandal. She's too young to sing like that: "Sarah must be straining her vocal chords," spat the headlines. "Sarah should quit the contest!"

Before discovering these soap-operatic Sarah Issues, I was already charmed by the wistful affirmation of "Okay," a track from her new album, Hjerteskudan (Heart Shot). Eloquent synth-power-pop, it fits directly into an empowerment trend among young females' songs today. They're all doing it: Rihanna and Nicki Minaj with "Fly," Lady Gaga with "Born This Way," Katy Perry's "Firework," Beyonce's "Run The World (Girls)." Though traditional political engagement in popular music may seem to be rather flaccid right now, personal politics in the form of buck-you-up anthems and tonics to the divas' troops of exquisitely maladjusted fans are all the rage.

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This week's international hit artist is Japanese indie pop duo Moumoon, made of (from left) composer Kosuke Masaki and singer/lyricist Yuka.

Courtesy of the artist

This week's international hit artist is Japanese indie pop duo Moumoon, made of (from left) composer Kosuke Masaki and singer/lyricist Yuka.

If Japanese indie pop duo Moumoon were a dessert, they would be a meringue. Fluffy, yes, but not as insubstantial as it seems (The egg whites, you see. Protein.) The comparison is specially sweet as the team of singer/lyricist Yuka and composer Kosuke Masaki explicitly link desserts and desire in their video for "Chu Chu," number 2 in Billboard's Japanese Hot 100. Finally! Pop acknowledges a truth universally acknowledged: that the lovelorn find solace more frequently in a tub of ice cream than another's arms, if only because less dialog is required. Early in his career, Boy George's British popularity rose exponentially when he confided that he'd rather have a nice cup of tea than sex.

The Japanese charts are all a-bubble with large, identically dressed groups of teens, some schoolgirl, some punk-Goth, that have their own synthetic charm. But Moumoon are different. While still living on cutesy Planet J-Pop (as Japanese pop is known), they have a faint waft of irony about them, like almonds. With Yuka's demure Peter Pan collar dotted with pearls and Kosuke's mod 'do, they fit right in on the L train shuttling between Manhattan and the designated cool zone of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Like all the best pop, the art of Moumoon's music is precisely in how throwaway they make it seem. The love lyrics are banal, but in this cushion-soft context, it doesn't matter. The words are there to operate like the music — an affectionate ambient texture, an enveloping tingle like being sprayed with a divine scent.

Enlarge Courtesy of Universal Music

It's Bob Sinclar.

Courtesy of Universal Music

It's Bob Sinclar.

This week's international hit artist is Bob Sinclar. Now there's a four-square, white picket fence name, at least to us over here Stateside. Yet search the usual music retail downloading suspects in America for one Bob Sinclar, and you won't find anything, not even my fantasy of who a Bob Sinclar should be — an amiable granite-jawed country dude in a Stetson and cowboy boots.

That's because Bob Sinclar is actually the intriguingly American-sounding (to the Europeans, anyway) stage name of Christophe Le Friant, a Franco-Italian house DJ and producer, whose "A Far L'Amore" is at number fifteen after sixty-two weeks in the Spanish charts. It seems that even the real allure of the fake exotic doesn't mean you can beat international retail boundaries.

With his romantically tumbling locks, the real Bob Sinclar would look exotic anywhere. Russell Brand should star in his biopic. On his posters, Sinclar poses naked, arm extended just like Michaelangelo's Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, looking right at home in the celestial V.I.P area. More than many in a generally extrovert calling, Bob Sinclar proudly represents the DJ as Dance God.

Like some dark twisted fantasy, an umbilical link always connects ex-colonizers with lands they once ruled. The influence is two-way; the colonizers are invariably altered by those they think they control. "Exotic" cuisines conquer: Britain's favorite dish is the specially created curry, chicken tikka masala, unknown in India. Slang slings the verbal dexterity of the once-downtrodden like a silk scarf round its former captors' language. The ubiquitous exclamation "Wicked!" represents Jamaica conquering first Britspeak, then hip-hop parlance. Just so, a band from a former French colony, Cote d'Ivoire's Magic System, has two tracks in the French charts at once, "Ambiance Africaine" at 14 and "Chérie Coco" at number 4.

Paris was and remains the international cultural capital of its Afro-Caribbean ex-colonies, the central melting-pot where local musics meld and modernize. The 1980s saw an explosive development of the sounds such as soukous and zouk that Magic System update as their own Ivorian style, Zouglou. But the mainstream media establishment ignored them then, even while immigrants and scenemakers would dance to them all night in African boîtes. I know because I lived in Paris and in 1984 co-hosted Chéries Noirs, France's first African music radio show — other than those on African underground pirate radio stations! With my Guinean friend Mouna, I spun heady precursors to "Chérie Coco" by artists like Kassav and Papa Wemba. But our show was on Radio Nova, a trend-setting pirate radio station started by the glossy news magazine I wrote for, Actuel, meaning that only hipsters heard us.

Media mutates. Actuel, which seemed as stable as the News of the World, is no more; Radio Nova is arguably France's most influential mainstream radio station and Magic System rule the French pop charts. The commercial acknowledgment of Afro-Paris pop that began building in the early '90s is a delicious development — one that has never yet tickled the American charts.

The dulcet endearment "Chérie Coco" suggests the tenderest smile. But Magic System's vibrant track switches the phrase's affection into action as a pulse-racing dance chant. My favorite moment is when the martial, tumbling drums drop out to reveal the old school shimmering Central African guitar sound: incisively picked arabesques of notes that build tension just as much as crashing chords.

Joined here by the rapper Soprano, the band members Salif "Asalfo" Traoré, Narcisse "Goude" Sadoua, Étienne "Tino" Boué Bi, and Adama "Manadja" Fanny have been friends since school days. They use modern auto-tune effects on their vocals — but their exuberant relish of well-loved old catch-phrases like "L'ambiance!" show their roots in classic Afro-Parisian pop. The cheery video's beauty contest for Miss Cherie Coco, in which the curvy African-looking girl beats out the skinny model types, captures the fun of a real bal dansant.

When Magic System started out in 1996, their music came out on cassette. They swept West Africa with "1ère Gwaou," the wry tale of a fool for love wising up; re-invented as a dance track in 2002, it made them the biggest African artists to hit France for twenty years. Their early songs confront weighty issues like abortion and paedophilia. Since then, Cote d'Ivoire has been ripped apart by war and now prizes every moment of stability it gets between crises. One Magic System video bears the legend: Cote d'Ivoire, Pays de Paix - Land of Peace. Certainly, the joyful ambiance of "Chérie Coco" brings cheer to many Cote d'Ivoiriens amid their struggles, while it also helps France dance. Swingez!

Wondering what people are listening to outside the U.S.? International Hit Parade is reviews of songs hitting the pop charts in Europe and the Caribbean.

In that bastion of pure pop, Great Britain, the shiny shadow of America's monsters of music often seems to loom over the local talent like slick Godzillas. But nestled at Number 11 this week in the U.K. charts, between American divas Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj, there's a scrappy little dance track called "Badman Riddim (Jump)" by Vato Gonzalez and the Foreign Beggars. The "dirty house" sound of the track is unheard in the U.S. charts, but typifies Britain today. That is, the song's title is in Jamaican patois; the producer Vato Gonzalez is Dutch; the MCs of Britain's Foreign Beggars are from Ghana and India and rap in accents from broad cockney to Jamaican yard-style.

Enlarge Courtesy of Dented Records

Courtesy of Dented Records

Members of the Euro-House nation, Vato Gonzalez and the Foreign Beggars typify a new breed of global citizen, who's sworn allegiance to the 140 b.p.m. synthesized drum; a bigger bond than details like where you were born.

Self-styled as "the most rebellious Dutch DJ," Gonzalez (real name Björn Franken) is the instigator of "dirty house," by which he means a vigorous, unpretentious, heartfelt style of house music. Gonzalez prides himself on sticking to modern delivery systems like mixtapes and downloads that bypass the traditional industry retail structure; "Badman Riddim (Jump)" is a digital-only release. The viral success of the rhythm track led to U.K. label Ministry of Sound matchmaking him with underground rave culture heroes the Foreign Beggars, comprised of MCs Orifice Vulgatron (Pavan Mukhi) and Metropolis (Ebow Graham), and DJ Nonames (James Miller). The first time Gonzalez heard their vocal was when they emailed him the finished track.

In his outlaw leanings, Gonzalez is a fine foil for the Foreign Beggars, lauded lords of British dance musics such as dubstep and grime, particularly as both partners like to be funny. Giggles are the secret to the success of "Badman Riddim (Jump)." Blasts of ominous-sounding chords evoking a cheesy 1950s horror flick soundtrack pepper the stripped-down synthesized stabs of Gonzalez's track; Foreign Beggars exhort their listeners to "Jump!" with lively, percussive conviction.

Shot on a roof-top, their video is endearingly lo-fi. A central motif is not some costly aerial shot, but a hand-operated puppet theater made of cardboard. The "band" play up the horror flick schtick by dressing as Godzillas, but far from being slick, their disguises are made out of purple and green paper. All except for the Monster In Black. His costume is also paper, but its overlapping, fish-like scales resemble, yes, old-fashioned vinyl records! Even dedicated digitalists have to respect how pop music began.