rowsing world charts—ones you're familiar with and ones that are alien—can be like looking depressingly into the past at The Rasmus, Black Eyed Peas and DJ Casper still holding some places in their thrall, while simultaneously being given a hint of the future. And it pays to know where the next Dragostea Bin Tei is coming from so you can either run away from it or (more sensibly) brag that you heard it first.

If I were to recommend a few charts to start following, they'd be Sweden (great home-grown pop), France (huge proportion of great stuff you've never heard before) and either Estonia (varied and interesting, though sometimes their local hits are hard to find) or Croatia (fantastic language for all kinds of pop and dance music—also, their charts are segregated between Croatian and foreign, so no chance of seeing Usher in there).

Alternatively, here are eight you can probably listen to right now:

TATA YOUNG - I Believe (Thailand, #5)
If you listen to the Thai chart, you'd hear an awful lot of dull guitar stuff with nothing frenzied or catchy whatsoever, so it’s no surprise that Tata Young's current material is causing a stir. This is rather better than her infamous last hit, "Sexy Naughty Bitchy", because here she eschews Christina Aguilera-lite for early 90s dance diva with a touch of J-Lo's "Waiting For Tonight". In other words: a very warm, inviting pop-dance number. Listen for the second chorus and the way it melts into a broken-down, minimal reprise as Tata sings the trite lyrics about believing in love and eternity. The pronunciation with that word, along with some whoas, is a definite hook—seemingly with absolutely no conception of how cliché ridden it is.

THE PRELUDERS - Hotter Than You Know (Germany, #21)
In which Germany's answer to Girls Aloud finally put out a good single. It sounds exactly like En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" in the chorus, albeit with a barrel-load of non-sequitur noises (like horns and pizzicato strings) and utterly ludicrous vocal gymnastics that sound absolutely brilliant. Lyrically, its come-hither-because-I'm-hot sentiments are a surprisingly confident pastiche of Pink, The Fugees' "Ready Or Not" and Anastacia. The delight comes in how ball-tearing convincing the delivery comes off. Needless to say, it's better than every other German reality pop single thus far.

VENKE KNUTSON - Scared (Norway, #16)
She's Norwegian, has a hilarious name and has made the best Michelle Branch single ever. Parts of this really are very similar to Branch, particularly when Venke is accompanied just by guitar, but the whole construction of the song is much stronger than this description might suggest. Rather impressive for getting the vulnerable voice down pat and then, ironically, when she says "I'm scared / The folded paper tells me you're gone" in the chorus, she doesn't even remotely sound like it. She sounds confident as she declares that when her lover is away that "someone is in the wrong place". Simple, unassuming and catchy.

RELIC - Banana Style (France, #20)
It is all but scientifically proven fact that "Cruel Summer" is one of the greatest pop singles ever and is almost impossible to fuck up. So looping it, rapping over it and changing the lyrics in the chorus is in fact a very good idea. Now, though, it's a "cool hot summer, now you're hear, I'm no longer here on my own", making it something of a flipside to the original. Actually, the gloriously authentic 80s synth intro—sounding more like the opening to a sci-fi flight sequence makes it sound like it's been re-recorded rather than sampled, a-la N-Trance's "Staying Alive" (those infectious bleeps sound just too modern and microhouse-influenced). Unless Bananarama really is the root of all modern dance music, as six-year-old me would no doubt have thought in 1987.

ERIKA - Right Or Wrong (Russia, #26, etc.)
Mixes sparse, bleepy sections with warmer electro sounds to very good effect. But, oddly, both the verses and the choruses seeming to be split into two distinct sections. It probably helps to be a fan of muttered mantra choruses, as the title is repeated under some other words and cheap Eurodance stabs. As such, it's crying out to be sung by someone with some volume. Erika seems occasionally rather drowned out by the surprisingly dense backing—put enough lite sounds on top of each other and these things happen—but she does sound rather good over the quieter bits. Just don't be afraid when you think the opening is going to turn into "Sultans of Swing" because it doesn't. Thankfully.

NIGHTWISH - Nemo (Finland, #4)
Possessors of legit metal cred with a dedicated fan base, Nightwish found themselves in a post-Evanescence musical landscape. This massive cross-over is the result. Obviously, metal of this kind has always been Top 10 material in parts of Europe in the same way that Iron Maiden or (ugh) Metallica singles always attained high placing in the UK and US respectively. With this single, Nightwish have upped their commercial ante to a ridiculous extent. Rather than Linkin Park meets Tori Amos, this is the chunkiest, hookiest pop metal sludge imaginable alongside Sarah Brightman, mixing slashes of pretty operatic noodlings, anthemic piano and strings with alternately blissful and heavy vocals. I can't decide whether I hate it or love it to pieces, to be honest, but it's definitely worth seeking out if you're unfamiliar.

ANTILOP SA - Antilop Sa Party (France, #37)
Not a French language equivalent of S Club Party, as you may fear from the artist/title combination, but rather French-language hip-hop with a bit of a Middle Eastern flourish, almost Turkish sounding. Think the flow of "Work It" with the minimalist backing of "Get Ur Freak On". There is a ten-note riff that is cut from the exact same cloth here. And surprisingly, the combination works brilliantly despite a clumsy chorus consisting of the word "party" repeated over and over again. Largely this is down to the rhythm of the French here, alternately flowing and gappy. An absolute sitter to have its beat nicked and given to an English-language rapper and for the person to do it to feel really, really smug about it.

K-MARO - Femme Like You (France, #50)
Yes, I know, three French songs out of eight is pushing it a bit. If possible, even more addictive than the above, this mixes an almost 70s classic rock guitar motif—think recent Santana—with a simple beat, French half-rapping/half-singing and some brilliant female-sung chorus. The female vocalist really gets the most of the rhythmic, sharp components of the words she's singing, which contrasts really effectively with the smoother, almost Cookie Monster-esque delivery of the rest of the song. The small bits at the start in earnestly delivered English: "let's do this gangster!" are even endearing. Best Eurohit of the month.