You can tell 2014 was a bad year for pop music because DJ Earworm, he of the annual United States of Pop mashup, said so. In an interview with Billboard, he explained, “The thing that has been most notable in the past two or three years is the decline of EDM. The ‘United State of Pop’ became this dance track from ’09 to ’12, and then starting last year, there just wasn’t enough in that genre to fully support it, so I went down-tempo…You have to decide, how is this going to go? How am I going to maintain the energy levels while being true to the sound of the year?”
That’s a nice way of saying, if we can’t dance to pop music, the hell’s the point? 2014: the year “Shake It Off” was the most infectious top-10 hit. Eh, still better than “Thrift Shop.”
