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And “SexyBack” also proved that sounding different on the radio was a positive, not a problem. Next time somebody tells you that a record can’t have wide-ranging pop culture phenomenon, ask yourself how many stray comments about bringing sexy back you’ve heard this year. Justin Timberlake also helped reaffirm the existence of the mega-hit. When “Irreplaceable” did pop, it was often set up by a listener call asking, “What’s that song about ‘to the left/to the left?'” And calls like those (when they’re real) are part of what still make radio exciting. Mostly, though, it shows that explosive, multi-format hits of this sort are still possible. So as we take our annual look at hit records in 2006 that had larger implications for the stations that played them, “Irreplaceable” proves that radio’s ability to find its own hits isn’t what it used to be–but it hasn’t been completely wiped out by an alleged post-Spitzer willingness to diverge from label priorities. When the “B-Day” album came out in September, Columbia had already worked one single and was in the process of promoting another, meaning that only a handful of PDs actually went to the album and found “Irreplaceable.” In the intervening weeks before it finally became too big to deny, I had one radio person tell me that the label would probably stop at two singles, and another tell me that “Irreplaceable” would have problems at radio because “Déjà Vu” and “Ring The Alarm” weren’t bigger hits. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” at least now, is that there was apparently a moment when it was not an obvious hit for any programmer who heard it. And having fewer songs that are shared experiences of that sort will make those that do exist all that more exciting. For all you may have read about “The Long Tail” and the likelihood that there will be fewer common currency smash hit songs, there will still be records that come along once or twice a year to demonstrate what Edison’s Larry Rosin calls “the imperative of a hit”–the fast-breaking record that’s so compelling that you sit in the parking lot waiting for it to end before you get out of the car, or punch from station to station looking to hear it again.