In last week’s “Ross On Records,” KZPT (The Point) Kansas City APD Tony Lorino raised the topics of songs that were released at the wrong time—songs whose failure to become hits reflects more what Top 40 radio was willing to play at the time. Lorino’s candidates were Pink’s “God Is A DJ,” pure pop at a time when Hip-Hop was in its final years of CHR domination, and Courtney Jaye’s “Can’t Behave” (a few years before Colbie Caillat brought acoustic whimsy back to the radio). So we solicited your thoughts on which songs could have been hits a few years later (or earlier).

Some of the songs that readers suggested eventually became de facto radio hits. Reader Tom Smith’s extensive list includes Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself,” one of a zillion early ’80s new wave pop gems that somehow didn’t seem like perfect pop songs in the era of Robbie Dupree and Joey Scarbury, as well as Melissa Etheridge’s “Like The Way I Do,” which took six years, but finally became a New York-area radio hit as the effective follow-up to “Come To My Window” and “I’m The Only One.” (The real third single from the “Yes I Am” album, “If I Wanted To,” is long forgotten by comparison.)

Steve Clem of Perfect Mix Music Logs mentions the Eagles’ “Desperado,” now an AC and Oldies/Greatest Hits mainstay, as well as Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight,” which received its fair share of airplay in 1981, but didn’t give any signs then of becoming the “top-of-the-music-test” record that it was for many years. (Reader Mike Erickson also mentions Collins.)

Jon Daniels, PD of ’90s Gold WIGX (94X) Long Island, N.Y., cites Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill,” which was “released in 1977, but sure sounds more like it came out in 1987. Alongside the U2s and the rock-leaning new-wave bands of the ’80s, this would have been a much bigger song,” he says. Instead, “Solsbury,” which came out when Gabriel was the less-known ex-lead singer of a less-known progressive AOR band, had to settle for becoming a secret-weapon record when all things Gabriel and Genesis trended upwards a decade later.

Then there were the songs that were cheated out of U.S. hit status altogether:

O-Zone, “Dragostea Din Tea” – “Regardless of how big it was internationally, there is no way that Romanian dance-pop was going to be acceptable in the U.S. in 2004,” writes Smith. Dance music underwent multiple ups-and-downs at Mainstream Top 40 in the ’00s, but even in an up-cycle, it’s unusual for Euro-dance’s goofiest songs to get through. (It does happen, as anybody who remembers Mr. President’s “Coco Jamboo” can attest to.) “Dragostea Din Tea” had to settle for U.S. fame as a T.I. sample, which was a better ultimate fate than…

In-Grid, “You Promised Me (Tu Es Fortu)” – “The success of Edward Maya’s ‘Stereo Love’ reminded me of this favorite stiff from around 2004,” writes Scott Lowe. “Both songs have an international European feel and feature an accordion.” In fact, both “Stereo Love” and “We No Speak Americano” were reminiscent of retro-sounding European dance hits going as far back as 1994’s “Doop” by Doop (whose title and artist alone guaranteed that no self-respecting U.S. PD could considerit).

Britney Spears, “I’m A Slave 4 U” – It got further at Top 40 (No. 18) than either of the above, but it came out at a time when Mainstream Top 40 was wary of Spears and any of her teen pop counterparts, even with a radical new sound. RCA national director of Top 40 promotion/east coast Joe Daddio notes that, “That record was released ten years ago this month and sounded almost too futuristic for 2001… I have to think if that song was the first single on her latest CD, ‘Femme Fatale,’ it easily would’ve been a top three record just like her first 3 singles have been off of this project. ‘Slave’ sounds more like Pop radio today than it did 10 years ago.” It says something about the tenacity of the then-Jive team that Spears stayed in play long enough at Top 40 to break through again with the equally different “Toxic.” And there’s also some irony in knowing that Spears is now at Top 40 with a single (“Criminal”) that differs in not being part of today’s turbo-pop sound.

Kylie Minogue, “Love At First Sight” - It managed some brief chart success at the time on the coattails of “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.” “Crap From The Past” host Ron Gerber writes, “If it had come out today, it would have fit right it with the current turbo-pop sound. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have stood out at all.” Gerber’s list also includes the Stabilizers’ 1987 “One Simple Thing,” (which had some life as a secret weapon record into the early ’90s), the Primitives’ “Crash” (which was reissued and part of the “Dumb And Dumber” soundtrack, but still couldn’t break through), Shuggie Otis’ original version of “Strawberry Letter 23,” and the Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star” (see “Dancing With Myself”).

MGMT, “Electric Feel”; Passion Pit, “Sleepyhead”; and Empire Of The Sun, “Walking On A Dream” – What a difference two years makes. Smith notes that all three of these fell between the cracks at Alternative, which is friendlier, but not quite friendly to rhythmic music these days, and Top 40, which was probably entirely unaware of them. Both “Electric Feel” and “Walking On A Dream” were international pop hits. And, Smith points out, "Katy Perry practically lifted the backing track for ‘Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)’ from the latter, which would probably also have a better shot at Top 40 now, after the success of Foster The People.

Finally, WJVC (My Country 96.1) Long Island, N.Y., PD/morning host Phathead alters the topic slightly to include hits whose influence isn’t sufficiently acknowledged now. Faith No More’s 1990 “Epic” doesn’t get the first mentions that Run-D.M.C.’s “Walk This Way” does when people mention rap/rock hybrids, but it’s the template song for Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, and much of the rap/rock (and Active Rock) that came nearly a decade later.

What songs are ahead of their time? We’re still looking for your suggestions. Please leave a comment or e-mail me.

This article is part of the Sept. 22 edition of Ross On Radio. To read more of this week’s ROR, click here.