For the past 30 years, each week I had a personal track of the week in my radio show (like I choose a weekly Wildcard nowadays). This was never a song I thought would be ‘the biggest future hit’, but just a great new track that I wanted to share and that I felt was overlooked. Very often this was a beginning artist or band, but sometimes a real big shot came up. And in many of those cases, even though it was a high profile artist, this particular song flopped. I sometimes felt like I could lay a curse upon a track (but of course I intended to do the opposite).

On 26 February 2016, my song of the week was Bad Man by Armando Christian Pérez. By who? By Pitbull of course, also known as ‘Mr. Worldwide’. He is one of the most popular artists in recent history, both in the English speaking world and in the Hispanic market (he is from Miami, so he records most of his songs in both languages or in Spanglish).

On Bad Man, Pitbull collaborates with Robin Thicke, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry and blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. It’s a shameless pop song that I thought would be a huge hit. And then… nothing happened.

I hope you’ll forgive me for thinking, over a year later, that the song didn’t have the amount of success I predicted. I was fortified in that opinion by the fact that Pitbull had since then released (of collaborated in) about 85 other songs.

So I was hugely surprised, last weekend, when I came across a brand new video for the song. Now, more than ever, I’m convinced this track has ‘hit’ written all over it. In flashing neon lights, that is. But listen and judge for yourself…

Werner Schlosser

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.