10 Sexiest World Leaders of 2015

It's time again for that most hallowed of Brush Talk traditions: the annual Top 10 Sexiest World Leaders contest!

All in all it was a rough year for many of 2014's Top Ten. Of the previous ten, four (Bratušek, Tymoshenko, Yingluck, and Touré) have since been put out to pasture (some democratically, some otherwise), and Haitian President Michel Martelly's days in the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince may be numbered, with ongoing protests and a corruption probe threatening his tenure. Meanwhile, Mexico's guapo president Enrique Peña Nieto has lost a great deal of lustre over his country's declining press freedom, a recent mass kidnapping of students in Iguala and frequent gaffes, while Italy's young premier Matteo Renzi faces an uphill battle against his country's old guard.

This year's list features an almost entirely new lineup from previous years. While Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is still a hottie, after two years atop the sexy list it was time to move on from the Kingdom of Bhutan. And while Albanian prime minister Edi Rama continues to charm, most recently taking steps to improve his country's long frictious relations with neighbouring Serbia, we decided it was time for fresh blood. Except for Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is simply too glamourous and wonderful to leave off the list. She makes the Top 10 for the third straight year.

It should perhaps be mentioned that when we're talking about 'sexiness' we're not simply talking physical attractiveness. Nope, we may be shallow here but we're not that shallow. Our contestants are rated on a totally non-objective range of criteria, including looks, fashion sense, personal charm and magnetism, and, wherever possible, competence in their line of work. Also, pains have been taken to assure that all regions of the world are adequately represented, although this has never proved to be a problem in these posts. So without any further ado, here is our Top Ten International Political Hottie list for 2015!

1. Helle Thorning-Schmidt

Source: dagbladdet.no

Why HTS again? Well, in addition to being arguably Europe's most glamourous sitting head of government, Denmark's Gucci-toting, Obama-selfie-snapping PM has a lot to show for her three years in office. Under her leadership, Denmark has emerged as one of Europe's best-performing economies, with an unemployment rate half the eurozone average, the lowest youth unemployment rate in the EU, and a global ranking of fourth in 'ease in doing business' (best in Europe). The country also continues to lead by example in combating climate change, with Denmark now on course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Of course Give-em Hell Helle hasn't been without her controversies. Obama selfies aside, the centre-left leader has antagonized many on the left in her country by clashing with teachers' unions, cutting corporate taxes, and overseeing the proposed sale of Denmark natural gas consortium DONG Energy shares to Goldman Sachs. Up for reelection in 2015, she currently trails behind Lars Løkke Rasmussen of the centre-right Venstre Party. But with an impressive list of achievements under her designer belt, Gucci Helle still enjoys substantial support - and is certainly not to be discounted.

2. Xavier Bettel

Source: purple-monkey.com

Luxembourg? Really? C'mon, I thought we were sticking with real countries here! Well, aside from having roughly similar sizes and populations, the postage stamp-sized Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also shares a certain va-va-voom factor with the similarly liliputian Kingdom of Bhutan. Instead of a smoking hot Dragon King, Luxembourg has as head of state the dashing Grand Duke Henri, who has presided over this curious vestige of the Holy Roman Empire since the death of his father Jean in 2000. But while the Grand Duke might be a looker, no man has of late been turning heads in the tiny country like its dreamy head of government, Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who in December 2013 became only the third openly gay world leader in modern history.

So how is Bettel faring thus far as Luxembourg's PM? Hard to tell. Luxembourg remains the second wealthiest country in the world by per-capital GDP (trailing only Qatar), with it and Singapore the only non-oil-based economies in the top five. Moreover, the Luxembourg Tax Avoidance Controversy that dogged his predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker appears to have had little impact on his popularity. And in August of this year the country was treated to the PM's wedding to longtime architect partner Gaultier Destenay. That and, well, how hard can it be to govern a place as small and placid as Luxembourg? Well, giventhe spectacular implosion of Iceland (a country with a population even smaller than the Grand Duchy) in the global financial crisis, that the political fallout that ensued, perhaps it's not as easy as it looks.

3. Joko Widodo

Source: metalsucks.net

Given the fact that Indonesia is a) the world's fourth most populous country; b) the world's third-largest democracy; and c) the world's most populous Muslim country, it's remarkable how little media attention the country's 2014 presidential elections received. While John Oliver famously lambasted the US media for ignoring India's general election (before Prime Minister Narendra Modi became a post-election neoliberal icon), the Indian election was a relative global media circus next to Indonesia's, which went by practically without a murmur. That said, the Southeast Asian nation's 2014 presidential election was a refreshingly placid and uncontroversial affair, which, given the country's relatively recent history of violent coups, ethnic cleansing, communal violence and systematic kleptocracy, is a refreshing sign of a maturing democracy that has come a long way from the end of the ugly Suharto era.

Indonesia's newly minted president Joko Widodo, or 'Jokowi' as he is universally known, shares Modi's rags-to-riches story, but that's where the similarities between the two leaders ends. Whereas Modi's past is clouded by controversy and his present tinged with strident religious nationalism, the colourful former governor of Jakarta appears to be remarkably controversy-free, and his presidential campaign was one centred on pluralism and religious tolerance, earning him the ire of the country's Islamists and the support of just about everybody else in a country long fraught by religious and ethnic conflict. He has also pledged to grow the country's economy by seven per cent a year for the next three years while continuing to overhaul its strained infrastructure.

Aside from his humble background as the son of a village furniture maker, he is probably best known for his abiding love of heavy metal, most notably Metallica, Lamb of God, Slayer and Napalm Death, leading LoG frontman Randy Blythe to dub him the "World's First Heavy Metal President." And at age 53 he looks at most half his age. Guess metal really does keep you young!

4. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

Source: pri.org

Argentina's Iron Lady and Presidente de la República since 2010, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has perhaps been something of an oversight in the last two years' top ten lists - if for no other reason that she seems like too obvious a choice. Style-wise she falls into the same category as Denmark's governing glamourpuss, with whom she shares a love of designer labels and haute couture, but Argentina's cougar-in-chief's sexy points stem mainly from her status as a fierce, take-no-shit political warrior with few equals. While Argentina's inflation-ridden economy remains as wobbly as ever, the widow of former president Néstor Kirchner has proven herself to be a fighter equal to her late husband, taking on billionaire US hedge fund managers and British prime ministers with equal aplomb.

Of all of Argentina's leading lady's jousting matches, the most spectacular may have been her KO against the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now known to the world as Pope Francis. While the current pontiff has made admirable, if tentative, steps towards softening the Church of Rome's hardline stance against homosexuality, it was the same Argentine cleric who took to the ring against Señora Kirchner on the issue of same-sex marriage in Argentina. She won, making Argentina the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage, and in doing so just might have helped push the Vatican's sexiest virgin in a more liberal direction. Gracias, Cristina.

5. Michelle Bachelet

Source: paula.cl

Remaining in South America's Cono Sur, 2014 saw the return to power of another one of the continent's leading female political pugilists, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, after four years in opposition. While on the surface, the hippie chick-turned-political refugee-turned-bookish socialist politician might seem like the polar opposite to her Rioplatense counterpart, the Chilean president is no less of a fighter. In her first term as president, Bachelet wasted no time exorcising the country's Pinochet-era ghosts by refusing to grant the late dictator a state funeral following his death in 2006, and three years later opening Santiago's Museum of Memory and Human Rights - a museum dedicated to documenting the horrors of Pinochet's 16-and-a-half year dictatorship.

After four years out to pasture, Señora Bachelet appears to have lost none of her old fire. Her current legislative priorities include legalizing abortion in this longstanding bastion of conservative Catholicism (abortion remains banned under all circumstances in Chile) and educational reforms aimed at narrowing the country's still pronounced socioeconomic divide. At age 63, the guitar-strumming, poetry-loving physician remains one of South America's most eligible bachelorettes. Just be prepared to take a back seat to her three children and her beloved country.

6. Taavi Rõivas

Source: LinkedIn

Estonia may not immediately spring to mind when you think of 'sexy' countries, but the small Baltic state has certainly earned its share of coolness cred since gaining independence from the USSR in 1991. From a melancholy backwater of the Soviet Union, the country has since emerged as an economic and cultural powerhouse, with the highest concentration of tech start-ups anywhere in the world and one of the world's most exciting contemporary music scenes. And while the country took a severe beating during the the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, Estonia's healthy business climate, strong ties to Scandinavia, and growing tourism industry helped make its recession far less painful than many of its fellow ex-Eastern Bloc countries.

If geek-chic has become Estonia's new modus vivendi, the country definitely has the right leadership for the job. In the largely ceremonial role of president Estonia has a bow-tied Bill Nye lookalike named Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a social media-obsessed tech maven who famously got into a Twitter spat with economist Paul Krugman over Estonia's 2008 austerity program. Meanwhile, this year's parliamentary election brought to power the baby-faced Taavi Rõivas, who at age 35 is currently the EU's youngest head of government. Combining Justin Timberlake's hair, Leo DiCaprio's jawline, and an easy fluency in four languages, Rõivas might just be the dishiest figure on the EU scene. But don't get your hopes up - his marriage to local pop princess Luisa Värk is one the the best-known things about him.

7. Portia Simpson Miller

Source: pri.org

When it comes to Gross National Sexy, the land of rum, reggae and rastafarianism has it made. Jamaica may have its problems, but lack of sex appeal has never been among them. From the seductive Irish-influenced lilt of Jamaican English to the island's bad-ass cuisine and its irresistible musical smorgasbord of reggae, ska, dancehall, rocksteady etc., Jamaica oozes sex appeal like few other places. Sadly, however, the island's politics have been decidedly less sexy over the course of the nation's young history, as its diverse economy has long been hampered by corruption and fiscal mismanagement to such an extent that a 2011 revealed that 60 per cent of Jamaicans would, if put to a vote, opt to return to direct British rule. Such sentiments are further compounded by the island's stubbornly high rate of violent crime, with poverty and corruption continuing to fuel the country's notorious gang problem.

Jamaica's current prime minister Portia Simpson Miller represents a significant departure from the island's previous leaders. As the country's first female head of government, Sista P, as she is commonly known, has shown a willingness to swim against the current when dealing with her country's warts. Most notably she has been the first Jamaican leader to publicly advocate on behalf of LGBTQ rights, a thorny issue in one of the world's most notoriously homophobic societies. While her performance on this front has been mixed in recent years, her administration has overseen a gradual opening of dialogue with gay rights groups and reforms aimed at curbing homophobic violence. And at age 69 she still looks glamourous, which helps when you're blowing kisses at LGBTQ rights protesters in New York City.

8. Joseph Kabila

Source: gabonlibre.com

Unless you're a wannabe mercenary with a serious danger fetish, the Democratic Republic of Congo is about the furthest thing from a sexy tourist destination one could possibly think of. The Central African country formerly known as Zaïre and previously known as the Belgian Congo has for most of its post-independence history been the sum of every negative cliché about the continent, from the cartoonish kleptocracy of dictator Mobutu Sésé Seko to the horrors of the country's two post-Mobutu civil wars, which together resulted in as many as 5.4 million deaths - more than any armed conflict since World War II. Even now, over ten years after the end of the Second Congo War, the eastern regions of Kivu and Ituri remain humanitarian disasters, where rape continues to be employed as a weapon of war with terrifying regularity. Indeed, using the word sexy in the same sentence as the DRC might strike some as inherently in bad taste.

That said, there once was a time when the nation's capital Kinshasa (formerly Léopoldville) was a hip and happening metropolis known affectionately as 'Kin la Belle' (Kin the Beautiful), which teemed with jazz joints and cafés, even as Mobotu and famously hosted Foreman and Ali for their legendary 1974 'Rumble in the Jungle' bout. And while much of the country remains a humanitarian nightmare, there are signs that life in the capital and other more peaceful regions is returning to normal - such as an emerging jazz festival in Kinshasa. As for sexy leadership, former guerrilla fighter-turn-president Joseph Kabila is certainly the handsomest head of state the country has had since the assassination of its dapper founding president Patrice Lumumba. While Kabila's 2012 reelection was marred by irregularities, he's been a saint compared to his predecessors - and at the very least is easy on the eyes.

9. Atifete Jahjaga / Tatiana Turanskaya

Sources: gazetadita.al / iefimerida.gr

In the ninth spot we have a split decision between two leaders whose countries fall into the category known to political scientists as 'places that don't exist'. The post-Cold War disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia left in its wake a bizarre assortment of self-declared nation states ranging in size from Kazakhstan (about four times the size of Texas) to places small enough to defend with a single large man with a Kalashnikov and a pack of rottweilers. It is into this latter category that fall the republics of Kosovo and Transnistria, two 'countries' that remain unrecognized by either much or nearly all of the world. On this front, Kosovo is on slightly more secure ground. Nearly nine years after its declaration of independence in 2008, it enjoys full diplomatic recognition from most developed western countries, including most of Europe. Transnistria, on the other hand, only enjoys recognition from fellow unrecognized breakaway republics Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia, although Russia, which maintains a troop presence in the region, continues to accord it 'special status' - whatever that means.

Transnistria and Kosovo also share the distinction of being led by two of the youngest female political leaders around. In 2013, the parliament of Moldova's breakaway eastern sliver selected as its prime minister the 40-year-old Tatiana Turanskaya, a former city administrator and mother of two, which is about all we could find out about her. (Concrete English-language information on the secretive Transnistrian Republic seems to be hard to come by.) More, however, is known about her Kosovar counterpart Major General Atifete Jahjaga, the country's former Deputy Director of Police who in 2011 became the region's youngest and first female head of state at age 35. While her ambition to move Kosovo towards EU membership might seem a long way off, she looks to have at least secured her country's place within the International Olympic Committee. Which is more than can be said for Transnistria, whose athletes have no option but to compete under the Moldovan flag.

Jahjaga and Turanskaya are both lookers - and therefore both make the list, but for all intents and purposes Jahjaga's worldly charisma and tough cop image puts her on top in the beautiful-women-running-tiny-states-struggling-for recognition category. Turanskaya appears to be more of Eastern European Danielle Smith than anything - possibly ready to cross the floor to Russia or Moldova at any moment.

10. Park Geun-hye

Source: New York Times

Of all the innumerable US-backed dictators of the late-twentieth century, few cut as jaunty a figure as South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee, who dominated his country's political scene from 1961 until his assassination in 1979. A former Imperial Japanese military officer during the colonial era who seized power in a 1961 coup, General Park is simultaneously loathed by modern-day Koreans for constructing a police responsible for a laundry list of human rights violations in the 1970s and 1980s (including the infamous Gwangju Massacre of 1980), and revered for his instrumental role in the country's spectacular economic ascendancy from the 1960s onward. Koreans' conflicted relationship with their former dictator has been thrown into sharp focus in recent years with the dramatic ascension of his daughter, Park Geun-hye, to the office he once held, making her the first female leader of any of East Asia's 'tiger' economies.

A little-known fact about South Korea's sitting president is that in 1974, as a 22-year-old university student in France, she suddenly found herself in the official role of First Lady following the death of her mother in a botched assassination attempt on the president - a direct link to the country's most autocratic period that makes many Koreans uncomfortable. But while her administration took a beating in the aftermath of the Sewol ferry disaster (although her decisive response to the disaster earned her many plaudits) and more recently has been shaken by an influence-peddling scandal within her Saenuri Party, she remains East Asia's most powerful woman according to Forbes Magazine, and her popular nickname 'Queen of Elections' if nothing else confirms her unquestionable commitment to the democratic principles her father once usurped.

While 'sexy' might not be the right adjective for the stern, buttoned-down mother of the nation, she nonetheless manages to blend Margaret Thatcher's charisma and resolve with the maternal streak of Michelle Bachelet. She remains unmarried, alluding in the past to being 'married to South Korea'. It's therefore doubtful that Korea's Iron Lady has a profile on Plenty of Fish, or whatever the Korean equivalent to that is. But with her maximum term in office to expire in 2018, one never knows for sure.

10 Asian Bands You Should Know

When academics assert that the 21st century belongs to Asia, they're generally talking about economics - not rock 'n' roll. And yet, if the current global musical landscape is any indication, it would appear the same can be said about rock and pop music. Pity, though, that the western world has yet to really take note. The global phenomenon of Psy's 'Gangnam Style' last year launched South Korea onto the forefront western pop music, but as I noted in a post back in December, foreign-language hits in the Anglo-American world tend to be flashes in the pan - as indeed he is proving to be. While Park Jae-sang deserves much credit for raising the profile of Asian pop music in the west, there's only so much one tuxedo-clad Monty Python horse-riding Korean rapper can do.

Sadly, North America is a veritable Hermit Kingdom when it comes to popular music. K-Pop, J-Pop and all its other regional variants are old news in much of the world, especially within Asia, where language differences have proven to be of little barrier onslaught of Japanese, Korean and Chinese pop and rock acts across the continent at large, with growing numbers from other Asian countries adding new vectors to the continental music picture. Beyond East Asia, artists from Korea, Japan and elsewhere are making waves in countries as divergent as Turkey, Poland and Brazil, places where, unlike in Asian countries, cultural proximity can in no way be counted on to compensate for language gaps.

While most of the Asian pop music taking over the world's airwaves is of the candy-coated teen pop variety, this is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Virtually all of the continent's major cities abound with punk, funk, prog, metal and electronic music, much of which seems to possess a rawness and energy that seems to be lacking in the Anglo-American west. A major factor, no doubt, is the fact that most of these countries are relatively young democracies with deeply rooted socially conservative mores, where tattoos, wild hair and loud music still count as acts of rebellion. Whatever the case, Indonesia's skatepunks and Vietnam's headbangers could well teach their North American counterparts a lesson on how to rock 'n' roll.

A list of must-hear contemporary Asian bands could well run into the hundreds. Here is my own semi-educated top ten.

1. Galaxy Express

Origin: Seoul, South Korea
Style: Alt-Punk
Recommended for fans of: The Ramones, Manic Street Preachers, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon

Source: seoulbeats.com

Anyone who thinks the idea of Korean punk rock sounds absurd needs to better acquaint themselves with Korea. And punk rock. We're talking a hard-boiled country with a tumultuous modern history whose present-day economic prosperity (in the South, that is) has done nothing to soften its people's flinty temperament. It's a country where student protests are practically a national sport and parliamentary democracy is (literally) a bloodsport, with debates on national security occasionally degenerating into fisticuffs that would make Tie Domi blush. The language is gutteral, the profanity colourful, the food fiery and the road etiquette borderline homicidal. It don't get much more punk than this!

That said, South Korea's domestic rock scene hasn't always had it easy; as late as the 1980s the military government regularly censored various acts. But after a quarter century of democracy, K-Rock has truly come of age. And of the current crop of bands, indefatigable alt-punkers Galaxy Express are generating the most attention, with a Best Band award at the 2011 Korean Music Awards, three US tours and a major following in Japan. Since forming in 2006, the trio of guitarist/vocalist Park Jong-hyun, bassist/vocalist Lee Ju-hyun and drummer Kim Hee-kwon have built a reputation as one of the hardest working bands on the planet. Punk passion meets Confucian work ethic - that's the Galaxy Express trademark!

2. Dachambo

Origin: Yokohama, Japan
Style: Jam Rock, Psychedelia, Neo-Prog
Recommended for fans of: Phish, Juno Reactor, I Mother Earth, Hawkwind, Fela Kuti, early Santana

Source: i.listen.jp

For a country with such strict drug laws, Japan has a remarkably enduring love affair with psychedelia and all things hippie. A straight-laced society on the surface, the country does indeed possess a strong granola-crunching, Gaia-worshipping streak, as is evident in the Lorax-on-acid visions of Hayao Miyazaki, the peace-love-dope lyrics of bands like dub reggae legends Audio Active and the hemp-clad denizens that congregate every year at festivals like the Fuji Rock Festival, Asagiri Jam and so on. It's also a country with a longstanding devotion to progressive rock, with some Tokyo record stores seeming to specialize in rare King Crimson and Magma bootlegs as well as those of J-Prog legends like Hikashu, Shingetsu and the Ruins.

Combining these two national predilictions is Dachambo, Japan's premiere psychedelic jam band. Dachambo burst onto the local scene in 2004 with their debut album Dr. Dachambo in Goonyara Island with their mesmerizing brand of classic jam and psychedelic rock, and have since been a fixture at the Fuji Rock Festival, Japan's biggest rock music festival. Combining Santana-inspired guitar riffs and Latin percussion, Hawkwind-style space rock synth patches, a heavy dose of Afrobeat (including a memorable cover of Fela Kuti's 'Zombie' on their debut album) and their trademark didgeridu, this Yokohama sextet manages to sound like the entire globe - if it were ground up, stuffed into a bong and then smoked. By Japanese hippies.

3. Matzka

Origin: Taidong, Taiwan
Style: Folk Rock, Reggae
Recommended for fans of: Michael Franti, Burning Spear, Shokichi Kina, Ry Cooder

Source: thinktaiwan.com

Taiwan is a small island with a big, complicated personality. An independent nation state in all but official designation, it exists in political limbo while it continues to grapple with its legacy of Japanese colonialism, Cold War-era Guomindang authoritarianism and enduring friction between the 'native' Taiwanese (of Han Chinese descent), newer settlers from the mainland and the island's non-Chinese indigenous peoples. Add to that the influence of rapid economic growth and the wholesale urbanization of a once overwhelmingly agrarian society - coupled with political factionalism that, like in South Korea, occasionally results in parliamentary punch-ups, and you have a combustible culture ripe for artistic expression.

While Taiwan's aboriginal tribes represent only two percent of the island's population (and a significantly smaller portion of its economic pie), Taiwan's first people nevertheless occupy an outsized position in the country's contemporary music scene, producing international pop stars like A-mei, Difang, Samingad and Landy Wen. With an indigenous cultural resurgence now gaining strength, a growing number of aboriginal artists are loudly proclaiming their roots. Of this new generation, the most successful has been Song Weiyi (aka Matzka) and his quartet by the same name. Mixing reggae, folk rock and traditional vocals, in a combination of Mandarin and the Paiwan language, Matzka has proven to be a hit not only across the island but on the mainland as well.

 4. Radioactive Sago Project

Origin: Quezon City, Philippines
Style: Funk, Jazz-Rock, Punk, Ska, Spoken Word
Recommended for fans of: Soul Coughing, P-Funk, early Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Source: shootingcorners.blogspot.com

When it comes to absorbing western musical influences and making them their own, the Philippines have had an enviable head start over all their Asian neighbours. With 300 years of Spanish colonialism followed by a half-century under Stars and Stripes, the land of jeepneys and adobo chicken manages to be simultaneously Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic and Yankee without any apparent friction. Moreover, the presence of large overseas Filipino communities in virtually all parts of the world has helped the motherland remain on trend, which helps explain why Korean soap operas, European art films and American rap music compete for the attention of this forever easily distracted country.

The Philippines' abiding love for jazz dates back to the turn of the 20th century, when the US wrested control over the archipelago from Spain, blossoming in the swing era with ensembles like the Pete Aristorenas Orchestra, the Cesar Velasco Band, the Tirso Cruz Orchestra, the Mabuhay Band and the Mesio Regalado Orchestra. In recent years Pinoy jazz has seen a resurgence thanks to groups like Johnny Alegre Affinity, Akasha and its most outlandish practitioners, the Radioactive Sago Project. Founded in 1999 by journalist/gonzo poet Lourd De Veyra, RSP combines slam poetry on sex, drugs, corruption and life in Metro Manila with a fierce, punkified blend of funk, ska and trashy Pinoy pop with some of the capital region's top session players. Fantastic stuff!

5. Modern Dog

Origin: Bangkok, Thailand
Style: Alt-Rock, Shoegaze
Recommended for fans of: Belle & Sebastian, Placebo, Mojave 3, My Bloody Valentine

Source: thaifilmjournal.blogspot.com

Thai rock music is one of Asia's best kept secrets. First introduced to the country by American GIs, rock 'n' roll was embraced by the Thais like few others, and more than anywhere else in the continent it has served as a protest vehicle. Most famous among Thailand's early rock rebels are the veteran folk-rock quartet Caravan, a group that emerged amid the 1973 democracy movement with their distinctive blend of rock and traditional folk music and more than anybody else established a uniquely Thai rock sound. But despite this and the countless other bands ranging from metal to shoegaze, Thai rock 'n' roll hasn't travelled very well - perhaps owing to the fact that Thai artists can't count on the kind of overseas diasporic support that their Filipino and Korean counterparts enjoy.

One of the few Thai bands to achieve success outside their homeland is Modern Dog. Established in Bangkok in 1992, this stripped down Brit-rock-influenced trio consisting of vocalist-rhythm guitarist Thanachai 'Pod' Ujjin, lead guitarist May-T Noijinda, drummer Pavin 'Pong' Suwannacheep and a rotating procession of bass players has been hailed as the leading lights of Thai indie-rock and have developed niche followings in Japan and the United States. While not an international household name, Modern Dog has earned the respect of many in the international musical community; their 2004 album That Song was produced by Tony Doogan (of Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai renown) and featured cameos by Sean Lennon and Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda.

6. Ngũ Cung

Origin: Hanoi, Vietnam
Style: Progressive Metal
Recommended for fans of: Tool, Queensrÿche, Porcupine Tree, Queens of the Stone Age, Rush

Source: rockstorm.vn

What is it exactly about the old Soviet Bloc and its near-universal prediliction for heavy metal? Is it the Soviet Brutalist architecture? The labour camp atmosphere? The bad fashion? Whatever the reason, from Minsk to the Mongolian steppe, Stalin's children have in vast numbers traded the hammer and sickle for the pentagram and collective farming for collective hair-thrashing. The land of Ho Chi Minh, it turns out, is no exception, although it took a bit longer for it to gain a foothold there. Vietnam's nascent 1960s rock scene, concentrated in wartime Saigon, was all but quashed by the communists following their victory over South Vietnam in 1975, and even with the Đổi Mới reforms of the 1980s it was slow to resurface.

The past decade, however, has seen Vietnamese rock music blossom like never before. And given that the country has all the requisite ingredients - a tortured past, a socialist present, a melancholy culture with a flair for melodrama and a language full of cool diacritical marks (Eat your heart out, Mötley Crüe!) - it was only a matter of time before Vietnam emerged as a metal powerhouse. Of this new generation of Vietnamese hard rockers, the most prodigious are the prog-metal quintet Ngũ Cung (lit. 'Pentatonic'). Made up of graduates from the Hanoi Conservatory of Music and led by operatic vocalist Hoang Hiep, Ngũ Cung first gained attention through a national talent show in 2007 and then drew international praise for their epic debut album 365000. Expect more from these guys!

7. Biuret

Origin: Seoul, South Korea
Style: Alt-Rock, Goth/Emo
Recommended for fans of: Evanescence, Flyleaf, Garbage, The Gossip, Muse

Source: londonkorealinks.net

Sadly, Asian rock, like rock music everywhere else, remains a very male-dominated affair. All across the continent, female performers have tended to be relegated to the bubblegum pop/male eye-candy category, wherein performers are judged more on their looks than their musical ability and tend to fade from the public eye after a brief halcyon period. While a few countries produced their own equivalent to the early 1990s Riot Grrl scene, with the exception of Japan (where female-led alt-rock units like Buffalo Daughter, Shonen Knife and Cibo Matto achieved substantial success), female-driven punk and alternative rock has largely remained underground, and information on such bands (in English at least) is hard to come by.

There are, of course, a few welcome exceptions. Of the current crop of hard-hitting Korean band taking Asia (and to a lesser extent North America and Australia) by storm, among the most incendiary is goth-punk outfit Biuret, led by charismatic frontwoman Won Moon-hye (who also maintains a double-life as a musical theatre performer). Established in Seoul in 2002, the band first gained prominence by opening for Oasis in the Korean capital and in 2009 shot to the top echelons of Asian rock by winning the Sutasi Pan-Asian Music Award, followed by festival appearances in Australia and the UK. With their gothic intensity and manga-esque style, Biuret have become helped elevate the stature of Korean rock abroad while combatting gender clichés at home.

8. Tengger Cavalry

Origin: Beijing, China
Style: Black Metal, Folk/Pagan Metal
Recommended for fans of: Turisas, Burzum, Hellthrone etc.

Source: last.fm

It should surprise no one that the tough denizens of the nation founded by Genghis Khan have developed a profound love for heavy metal. Metal bands began emerging in Mongolia almost immediately after the fall of the communist regime in 1990, led by acts like Hurd, Kharanga and Niciton. Veteran Mongol metalheads Hurd ('Speed'), with their trademark wolf pelts and portraits of the Great Khan, heralded the emergence of an eastern equivalent to Scandinavia's viking metal, and in doing so provoked a modicum of panic in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where in 2004 the authorities cancelled a Hurd gig on fears of ethnic unrest and riot police were forced to disperse a crowd of 2,000 irate fans.

Ironically, the most extreme of the Mongol Horde-inspired metal bands originates from the other side of the Great Wall in the city that Genghis conquered and made the centrepiece of his Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. Named after the chief deity in traditional Mongol shamanism (Zh: 铁骑), Tengger Cavalry was originally formed as a one-man project by a multi-instrumentalist known as Nature Zhang, and has since grown into a six-piece behemoth, incorporating Tibetan/Mongolian throat singing and traditional North Asian instruments into Scandinavian-style doom metal - to terrifying effect. While the band has yet to tour outside China, they have begun attracting significant overseas attention, opening for Finnish pagan metal Turisas in Beijing this spring.

Fans of this genre should also check out the Kazakhstani band Aldaspan, who, like Tengger Cavalry, have married metal with the traditional sounds of the steppe to make music that will make you want to loot and pillage your way along the Silk Road.

9. Billfold

Origin: Bandung, Indonesia
Style: Hardcore/Skatepunk, Riot Grrl
Recommended for fans of: L7, Suicidal Tendencies, Bad Religion, Fugazi, Rancid

Source: facebook.com/thisbillfoldbandung

It's worth noting that in the vast majority of Asian countries, being a punk rocker (or any other breed of rocker for that matter) is considerably easier today than it was a generation ago. Of the artists profiled here, all but two hail from electoral democracies, and the two countries that aren't are nonetheless much more socially and culturally permissive now than they were 20 years ago. That said, socio-political challenges remain. In Indonesia the past decade-plus of uninterrupted democracy has also seen a rising tide of Islamism, which is making life increasingly difficult for the country's famously passionate hardcore/skatepunk community. In Medan in Islamist-dominated Aceh Province, 65 punks were arrested over a year ago and sent to re-education camps, and even in the liberal capital Jakarta religiously motivated crackdowns on punk venues have occurred.

In spite of rising religiosity, punk continues to thrive in the world's largest Muslim country, aided in no small part by the country's wholesale embrace of social media. (Jakarta alone produces 2.4 percent of the world's tweets.) Among the latest crop of Indo punk acts, one of the most compelling is Billfold. Founded in 2010 in the hardcore hotbed of Bandung, West Java, Billfold is everything the local Islamists love to hate - a female-fronted social media-savvy skatepunk outfit. While information on the band in English is hard to come by, the writhing masses of punked-up youth prostrating at the feet of frontwoman Gania Alianda and their 31,000-plus Twitter following (nearly half of Rancid's tally and nearly 20 percent of Henry Rollins') suggests these kids are on to something. Allah be praised; punk is not dead!

10. MIDIval PunditZ

Origin: Delhi, India
Style: Electronic, Trip-Hop, Jungle, Drum 'n' Bass
Recommended for fans of: Massive Attack, Daft Punk, Gorillaz, Lamb, Talvin Singh, Leftfield

Source: nh7.in

For a country that has long been placed on a pedastal by western artists, India's ascendency as a legit force in contemporary popular music was a long time coming. With the notable exception of prodigal son Farrokh Bulsara (better known to the world as Freddie Mercury), Indian artists have long chafed under western preconception of uncoolness, either lumped in with classicists like Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain or with the cheesy morass of Bollywood. This finally began to change in the 1990s with the emergence of diasporic artists like Talvin Singh, Sam Zaman/State of Bengal and Asian Dub Foundation in the UK and Karsh Kale and Monica Dogra in the US, whose varied crossover projects heralded a 21st century 'Cool India' renaissance.

In the meantime, social change and rapid economic growth have transformed the motherland's music almost beyond recognition in the past decade. In the late 1990s, Delhi boys Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj founded the electronic crossover combo MIDIval PunditZ at a time when the Indian capital still barely had any nightclubs. Today live music venues abound in India's major cities, and the scene that Raina and Raj helped establish has created a powerful bridge between the diaspora and homegrown artists. With five studio albums under their belt, numerous overseas festival appearances and an impressive list of collaborators, including Karsh Kale, Anoushka Shankar, Monica Dogra and Assamese folk rocker Angaraag 'Papon' Mahanta, Indian music has never looked more enticing.

And one honourable mention

One country notably absent from this list is, not surprisingly, North Korea. I did so try to find a North Korean band to include here, but alas I came up empty-handed. The People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam may still be one-party authoritarian states, but the fact that bands like Tengger Cavalry and Ngũ Cung can not only operate openly but also perform overseas attests to their countries' increasing openness and social liberalization. Sadly, musicians inside the People's Democratic Republic of Korea enjoy no such freedom, and while closet punks, headbangers, emo kids and ravers may exist, there's little likelihood of any North Korean bands reaching western audiences anytime soon.

The video below was the best I could do. Given that official party functions are about the only gig to be had in this country, this type of thing is the closest thing to a rock concert any North Korean is likely to attend. I have no idea who these musicians are or even the significance behind this particular rally (possibly a missile launch, if the film footage a behind the band is any indication), but at the very least these ladies have a chance to make some music. And the pyrotechnics on display here are vaguely reminiscent of Kiss. That aside, the only silver lining is that China was just as despotic as present-day North Korea under Mao Zedong. Hopefully in a decade's time I'll be able to write about a rock renaissance in Pyongyang. In the meantime, though, you'll have to content yourselves with this.

Happy listening!

Korea's Air Safety Saga Revisited

Source: airlinereporter.com

About a year ago I wrote a post about communication culture and air safety within the context of Korean Air's attempt to improve its formerly woeful safety record. I had more or less forgotten about the post until last weekend, when its hits shot through the roof following the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in San Francisco on Saturday. One reader responded with the following comment:

"Whew, this article helped calm my nerves immensely as my 14 year old gets ready to fly out on Korean Air after today's crash in San Francisco with Asiana. Thanks!"

As of today, the investigation into the crash of the Asiana 214 on landing at San Francisco International Airport, which killed two passengers and injured 182, is ongoing and the cause of the disaster has yet to be identified. What is known is that for whatever reason the Boeing 777's descent into SFO was too low and too slow and that the plane struck the sea wall at the end of the runway before losing the tail section of the plane and spinning out of control on the runway.

Thus far the most disturbing finding has been that of the two Chinese adolescents who died in the disaster, one was actually struck by an airport firetruck rushing to the scene, although it is not yet known if she was alive at the time. Other reporters have questioned why there was an apparent delay in the evacuation of the plane following the crash. The latest findings suggest there were no mechanical problems with the plane, putting the putting the focus of the safety probe squarely on the two pilots, of whom one was landing the 777 for the first time at SFO and the other was a relatively inexperienced training captain.

While it's still to early to say for sure, for the time being it appears likely that pilot error of one sort or another is the primary cause of the crash. Not surprisingly, the advent of the Asiana 214 disaster led some commentators familiar with South Korea's checkered air safety history to wonder aloud if this latest disaster represents a re-emergence of an old problem of fatal cockpit communication breakdowns rooted in an authoritarian aviation culture. As I outlined in my August 2012 post about Korean Air, it was the deadly crash of Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 outside London that precipitated vast, sweeping changes to the airline's training practices.

Since the advent of Korean Air's human resource management reforms, South Korea's flagship airline has enjoyed a virtually spotless safety record - and a vastly improved reputation. Meanwhile, its main rival and the country's second-largest carrier Asiana (which also had its safety rating briefly downgraded by the FAA in 1999 together with KAL) has also enjoyed a growing reputation for both customer service and safety over the same period. Between 1999 and 2013, Asiana has experienced only two serious incidents - a near-miss over Los Angeles due to an ATC error and a crash of a cargo 747 off Jeju Island resultant from a cargo fire - neither of which were the result of pilot error.

While NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman has stated that she intends to look into communication between the pilot and co-pilot during the flight, thus far there appears to be no evidence that the crash of Asiana 214 was the result of poor cockpit communication. A Washington Post article suggests the two men were indeed communicating effectively and had decided to abort the landing within seconds of the warning bells sounding. Meanwhile, the US media's quickness to question whether Korea's traditionally hierarchical culture was to blame for the crash drew ire from many Koreans. One unidentified airline pilot was quoted in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo daily as follows:

"It's true that captains acted in an authoritarian way in the cockpit in the past, but that's almost nonexistent now. It's unimaginable for a captain to ignore the first officer in an emergency."

Regardless of how the Asiana 214 inquiry turns out, it appears that South Korea's much-vaunted air safety culture reforms of the late-nineties have indeed proven to be the "real deal" and that bad communication was not the killer in the case of Flight 214 to San Francisco. And while it may well turn out that Captain Lee Kang-kook and First Officer Lee Jeong-min (who was flying the plane at the time) made mistakes that caused one of the worst passenger air disaster in recent memory, it would appear that there was nothing intrisically Korean (or Asian) about their errors.

Before Gangnam Style - 10 Great Foreign Language Hits From Across History

We've all heard it a bazillion times now and seen the video nearly as many times. The English-speaking world is now thoroughly in love, or at least fascinated, by Park Jae-sang, the South Korean rapper-pop star better known to the world as PSY, thanks to his ridiculously infectious hit song about life in the South Korean capital's most chi-chi suburb. It's still early to say but 'Gangnam Style' is showing signs of being an epoch-defining pop icon to compare with Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' three decades previous, with PSY's patented equestrian-themed dance move emerging as the 'moonwalk' of the 2010s. As of November 24, Gangnam Style had achieved 806.3 million views, making it the single most watched video in YouTube history.

The global phenomenon of Gangnam Style is all the more remarkable given that the song in question is in Korean. Granted, K-Pop is far from an unknown phenomenon throughout East Asia, where the past decade has seen this mighty-mouse republic emerge as a veritable pop culture powerhouse, in the western world the Republic of Korea, while well respected for its high-tech gadgetry and formidable industrial economy, is hardly seen as a country on the cutting edge of cool. Or at least until PSY showed up. However, it's doubtful that the Gangnam Style craze will lead to the K-Wave spreading beyond Korea's backyard, as foreign-language hits in the Anglosphere have overwhelmingly been one-hit wonders - briefly beloved and then quickly forgotten.

The cruelty of this, of course, is that non-Anglophone popular music acts have long been forced to produce English-language material if they're to have any hope of branching far beyond their homelands. (This is notably not the case for Spanish-language acts, for whom a wide-ranging audience from Madrid to Miami to Montevideo is primed for their material.) Bands from non-English-speaking countries have ranged from pop acts like Roxette and t.A.T.u. to metal bands like Sepultura and the Scorpions, whose only commonality is the fact that they've all adopted the language of Shakespeare and Elvis Presley with the hopes of branching beyond their native lands.

Baku Style: Eurovision winners Eldar and Nigar

What is the consequence of this? Ever tune into the Eurovision song contest before? This cultural institution is a fascinating study of what happens when you take the cream of the entertainment industry in an ill-defined region stretching from Scandinavia to the Caucasus and make them all sing in the lingua franca of contemporary pop music. And while many of the results of this are actually quite impressive, as was the Eldar & Nigar hit 'Running Scared' which won the Republic of Azerbaijan its first Eurovision title in 2011, it still manages to feel somewhat disconnected with reality, like a cross between MTV and Berlitz. Imagine, for the sake of comparison, if Michael Jackson had been forced to deliver his entire act in, say, Danish. Actually, that would be pretty cool.

But there's more reason for the English-speaking work to embrace foreign-language music than it simply being just deserts. By effectively excluding non-English-language songs, English speakers are missing out on a vast amount of great music as well as lyrics which, with the aid of liner notes, can be appreciated almost as deeply as lyrics in one's own language. Singer-songwriters like Caetano Veloso, Salman Ahmad and Shokichi Kina are poets comparable to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and yet are virtually unknown to Anglo audiences - much to their loss. The bittersweet love songs of Charles Aznavour pack a punch even without translation, as do the haunting vocals of Mercedes Sosa and the rapturous glory of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Granted you can't necessarily understand the songs, but the continued popularity of mumbling rockers like Dylan and Dave Matthews must mean that incomprehensibility isn't necessarily a barrier to popular appeal.

Of course there have indeed been foreign-language crossover hits over the years. The curious thing about them, though, is they seem to have become less frequent over the decades. As our world has become more globalized, popular music tastes in the Anglo-American world seem to have gone in the opposite direction, Gangnam Style notwithstanding. There was once a time when the songs of Édith Piaf and Yves Montand were standard fare on English radio, and iconic Latin American songs like La Bamba and Guantanamera were beloved in the US at a time of anti-Latino bigotry was far fiercer and more overt than that it is today. Why is it now that now, when our society is arguably more tolerant and more diverse than it's ever been, there seems to be more resistance than ever to foreign language songs? Resistance to an ever-encroaching outside world? I don't get it.

My feeling, however, is that this will shift soon, probably within the next decade. While English remains the de facto language of globalization, the Anglo-American world no longer maintains an undisputed monopoly over the diffusion of popular culture. PSY's homeland is a perfect case in point - a country that 50 years ago was a war-ravaged basket case but is now one of the leading forces not only in global commerce but also in popular culture, in everything from RPG gaming culture to melodramatic soaps with a following stretching from Japan to Indonesia. Brazil's homegrown pop music scene has long had a following in the Lusophone world; look for this emerging world power to flex its creative muscle. And as los Estados Unidos becomes an increasingly bilingual country, the presence of Spanish-language music can only grow.

In the meantime, here are 10 classic foreign-language songs that, for whatever reason, beat the odds and took the English-speaking world by storm.

1) Édith Piaf, 'La Vie en rose' (1947)

An oldie among foreign language crossover fans, Édith Piaf's iconic 1947 hit about seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses is probably the most quintessentially French song after 'La Marseillaise' (which Serge Gainsbourg famously profaned with his reggae cover of it on Aux Armes Et Caetera). With a melody by composer Louis Guglielmi and lyrics by Piaf herself, the song sold over a million copies in the United States (Imagine what Fox News would have had to say about it had they been around at the time?), while reaching #1 status in Italy in 1948 and #9 in Brazil the following year. It has also shown tremendous lasting power, having since been covered by everyone from Liza Minelli to Cyndi Lauper to, curiously enough, Iggy Pop. La vie est toujours en rose.

2) Domenico Modugno, 'Nel blu dipinto di blu (Volare)' (1958)

A curious thing often happens to foreign language songs that catch on in the English-speaking world - they change titles. Such was the case with Italian crooner Domenico Modugno's 1958 hit 'Nel blu dipinto di blu' ('In the Blue, Painted Blue'), a song that became known outside Italy as 'Volare' ('To Fly'), after the song's famous refrain. Inspired by a pair of paintings by Marc Chagall, the song won third place at the 1958 the Eurovision Song Contest and then spent five weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. It has since been covered by Dean Martin, Al Martino, David Bowie, Gipsy Kings and Barry White, and also made a memorable appearance in the movie A Fish Called Wanda as part of Kevin Kline's mock-Italian bedroom talk.

3) Ritchie Valens, 'La Bamba' (1958)

The song that put Latin America on the rock 'n' roll map, this classic folk song from Veracruz was immortalized by teenage Chicano rock legend Richard Valenzuela, better known as Ritchie Valens, otherwise best known for his death at age 17 in the 1959 plane crash that also took the lives of Buddy Holly and J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson. The song reached #22 on the US Billboard Pop Singles, an unprecedented feat for a Spanish-language song, and finally reached #1 in 1987 thanks to LA Chicano rock band Los Lobos' cover of it for the eponymous Luis Valdez biopic starring Lou Diamond Phillips. It remains the only non-English-language song on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.

4) Kyu Sakamoto, 'Ue o Muite Arukō' aka 'Sukiyaki' (1961)

In 1963, British record executive Louis Benjamin travelled to Japan where he fell under the spell of young crooner Kyu Sakamoto and his sweetly sentimental ballad 'Ue o Muite Arukō' ('Walking While Looking Up'). The song became an overnight sensation in the west under the name 'Sukiyaki' in spite of the exactly zero references to simmered beef in the song. (Benjamin presumably figured it was the only non-militaristic Japanese word his audience knew.) The song sold over one million copies in the US and reached #1 status in June of 1963, and to this day remains the only Japanese song to reach #1 on the US Billboard charts. In an interesting parallel to Valens, 'Kyu-chan' was also killed in a plane crash - in the infamous crash of JAL Flight 123 in 1985 - and was also posthumously immortalized in a motion picture named after his greatest known hit.
 
5) João & Astrud Gilberto, 'Garota de Ipanema (The Girl from Ipanema)' (1964) 

When Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim and renowned diplomat-poet Vinicius de Moraes sat down to write their now-famous voyeuristic paean about beauty and heartache in Rio de Janeiro's ritziest beachfront neighbourhood (think Gangnam Style on valium), they must have felt fairly assured of a hit. Nothing, however, could have presaged the phenomenal success of 'The Girl from Ipanema', a song that almost singlehandedly popularized bossa nova beyond Brazil thanks the Grammy Award-winning 1965 recording of it starring João and Astrud Gilberto together with American tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. Nearly a half-century old now, it is believed to be the second-most recorded pop song in history after the Beatles' 'Yesterday' and one that, like 'La Vie en rose', has become an unofficial anthem of the country that gave life to it.

6) Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin, 'Je t'aime… moi non plus' (1969)

In addition to being one of the most famous foreign language crossover hits of all time, French bad-boy chansonnier Serge Gainsbourg's ode to...well, fucking holds the distinction of being one of the world's most widely banned songs. Originally written for and sung with actress Brigitte Bardot in 1967 (whose husband refused to allow it to be released), it was re-recorded by Gainsbourg and his then-lover Jane Birkin two years later on the appropriately titled album '69 Année érotique. Chiefly remembered for Birkin's heavy breathing and simulated climaxing, the song was banned in a swath of European countries, with the Vatican allegedly excommunicating the Italian record executive who oversaw its release in Italy. Suffice it to say, the Papal PR campaign on behalf of the song did wonders for it, helping it top the UK charts and sell over 4 million copies by 1986.

7) Falco, 'Rock Me Amadeus' (1985)
 
If there's one song that truly presaged the arrival of Gangnam Style, it's Johann 'Falco' Hölzel's 1985 rap homage to his country's best-known musical export. Originally a bass player with the late-1970s-early 1980s Austrian hard rock-punk outfit Drahdiwaberl, Falco established himself as a solo artist in 1982 with the rock-rap hit 'Der Kommissar' ('The Inspector') before rocketing to worldwide renown with his campy Mozart-themed hit, accompanied by an over-the-top video that gives PSY a run for his money. Boosted by the success of the 1984 biopic Amadeus, 'Rock Me Amadeus' reached #1 in Canada, the UK and the US, where he was the first German-speaking artist to reach such heights. Largely disappearing from the scene thereafter, Falco died in a car crash in 1998 - supposedly as he was mounting a comeback.

8) Mitsou, 'Bye Bye Mon Cowboy' (1988)
 
The divide between Canada's 'Two Solitudes' is nowhere more pronounced than in popular music. French and English-Canadian music typically occupy very separate spheres and Francophone artists such as Céline Dion and Roch Voisine have had to switch languages to get any success outside Québec. One of the few Québécois artists to breach the language firewall was teen pop star Mitsou Annie Marie Gélinas, the granddaughter of renowned playwright Gratien Gélinas, whose breakthrough hit 'Bye Bye Mon Cowboy' became a rare smash hit across Canada, selling over 100,000 copies. (The fact that the only French word in the title is 'mon' may have helped.) Like Falco, Mitsou had a difficult time replicating her early success, although she continues to be a prominent media personality in La Belle Province.

9) Los del Río, 'Macarena' (1995)
 
Sigh. Anyone who came of age in the 1990s had to endure dance parties wherein, apparently under the spell of some malevolent spirit of the airwaves, otherwise normal people would cease whatever they were doing and perform a mime-dance that could only be likened to a cross between the YMCA and a border-patrol body search. And yet, the song that inflicted this craze on the world really wasn't that bad - at least at the outset. Originally written and recorded by the Seville-based Latin pop duo Los del Río, the original acoustic guitar-based dance number didn't become a craze until the Bayside Boys turned it into a club mix in 1995. The single spent 14 weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, one of the longest runs atop the Hot 100 chart in history, was was ranked the '#1 Greatest One-Hit Wonder of all Time' by VH1 in 2002. And still nobody knows why.

10) Rammstein, 'Du hast' (1997)

There's something about the German language that seems to lend itself to industrial rock, as exemplied by veteran sonic terrorists like Die Krupps, KMFDM and Einstürzende Neubauten. While little of this has had any mainstream exposure, industrial rock experienced a brief surge in popularity in the mid-1990s thanks to the success of Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, which also opened the door to Berlin-based industrial metalheads Rammstein. The group's 1997 hit 'Du hast' (a play on words meaning both 'You Have' and 'You Hate') gained international prominence thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack for The Matrix, briefly reaching #2 status on Canada's Alternative Rock charts. At yet we still make fun of the Germans.

Is there anything important I've missed here? I'd love to hear about it.