As someone who listens to pop music mostly due to having a 15 year old daughter, it's been a pretty lackluster year for pop music. I was thinking of how much better pop music probably was 50 years ago, but then I looked at the 1974 year end chart. And holy shit, that was a terrible year for music.
If Bennie and the Jets is arguably the best song on the year end chart, then it's a damning indictment.
Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1974 - Wikipedia