This has not been an appalling year for pop music — it was better than 1984, for example, and 1961. Simply put, it was a year in search of a direction, one foot planted in 1980s cheese or bombast, the other still dipping its toe into the now mind-sapping boredom of EDM, with the occasional nod to a middle-class version of hip hop, a once garish and interesting subculture now utterly subsumed by the mainstream.