Was Pink’s “God Is A DJ” a stiff? Or just poorly timed?

Pink has been a core artist at CHR and Hot AC again for two album projects now. So it’s hard to remember the resistance she faced in 2003-04 with the two singles from her “Try This” album: “Trouble” and “God Is A DJ.”

Pink’s “cold spell” carried over into initial resistance to her next project. It was only when the third single, “U + Ur Hand,” became a hit, that she was back on the map (and second single, "Who Knew," could be reissued).

This week, Adult Top 40 KZPT (The Point) Kansas City APD/middayer Tony Lorino writes that he heard "God Is A DJ" again and wondered if it was simply mistimed, coming out in a more rhythmic era. "In today’s power-pop world, do you think it would be a hit?" he asks.

Lorino’s list also includes Courtney Jaye’s “Can’t Behave,” another mid-’00s song that, among other things, anticipates the sound of Colbie Caillat’s hits. “It had that pop sensibility, but Top 40 at the time was too busy with 50 Cent’s ten singles.”

It’s hard to know if either of those songs would fare better today. “Can’t Behave,” in particularly, might sound less pop than ever among today’s fist-pumping turbopop. But it is intriguing to ask what songs were ahead of their time—not just should’ve-been-hits, but songs that were particularly hurt by timing.

I’m looking for your suggestions, but I’ll throw two very different songs out for starters:

Sundays, “Here’s Where The Story Ends” (1990) – It became a Modern Rock hit because it was a little ethereal and there was nowhere else for it to go. It barely touched pop radio, where it was considered exotica. Half-a-decade-later, they would have had a hit alongside Primitive Radio Gods, Shawn Colvin, Dogs Eye View, and all the other unlikely acoustic hits of that era. And everybody would have recognized it for the Modern AC hit that it was.Today, of course, they’d also have had 30 TV and film syncs before radio ever came across it.

Common, “Universal Mind Control” (2008) – He’s one of Hip-Hop’s most respected artists, but he’s never somebody you expect a party rock anthem from. But he did try his hand at one in 2008, six months before “Boom Boom Pow.” This was one that my iPod exhumed for me, and it was amazing that a song this obviously calibrated as a hit languished in relative obscurity at the time—bewildering his traditional audience and not reaching a wider one.

Okay, let’s hear your “ahead of their time” nominations.

SECRET WEAPONS

Every week, we’ll try to find a song or two that isn’t being worked to radio, part of our ongoing encouragement to programmers to help discover their own hits.

Ed Sheeran, “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” – Britain’s breakthrough artist of the last year, and the likely holder of the No. 1 album come next Sunday. He’s a singer/songwriter who has connections with the British Hip-Hop scene. Like “Rolling In The Deep,” this has the advantage of having rhythmic elements to it, but not being rhythmic pop of the sort that is already amply available. Like “Rolling In The Deep,” it sounds like a hit, but doesn’t sound like any other hit.

LMFAO, “Shots” – Over the last year, I’ve noted a few times that this nearly two-year-old record had taken on a life of its own—particularly when any discussion of drinking in a public place seemed to spur at least one person to break into the hook. Now, with “Party Rock Anthem” having made LMFAO more of a known entity, “Open House Party” host/founder John Garabedian is taking up the call for it as a bringback, noting that it was top 15 requests last weekend.