I asked because I feel like 2012 is the year some people to consider electropop influence to have went down a little bit, and some people also agree that 2016 was a transitional year for music, which places 2014 right in the middle. There was another thread very similar to this one, asking if 2014 is musically closer to 2011 or 2017, but I feel like a lot of people see 2012 and 2016 as transitional years for music, so I thought this would be more interesting.

Personally, I think the music of 2014 is more like the music of 2012. I can't speak for all music genre's though. I listen to mainly pop and hip-hop. But I definitely think when it comes to hip-hop, 2012 and 2014 are more like each other than 2014 and 2016. I remember in both 2012 and 2014, you still had that "hey! hey!" background chant in songs. A good example of this is "Rack City" by Tyga (2012) and "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea (2014). That chant you hear in the background was pretty much gone by 2016.

For general pop music in 2014, songs were usually up-tempo, joyous, and/or EDM-styled with deep basslines. There were some hit electropop songs like "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift, "Habits (Stay High)" by Tove Lo, and "Chandelier" by Sia, but electropop wasn't as huge as it was back in 2009-2012.

For hip-hop, it was mainly fast-paced, electric trap and pop-rap. Songs included "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj, "Hot N*gga" by Bobby Shmurda, "Lifestyle" by Rich Gang, "Believe Me" by Lil Wayne ft. Drake, "Only" by Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Drake, and Chris Brown, and "G.D.F.R." by Flo Rida.

So, 2014 honestly felt like its own entity that doesn't strongly feel like either 2012 or 2016. But 2014 has more of a positive musical atmosphere than 2016, so I'm inclined to put it closer to 2012.

I'd say 2012, since in 2014 we were still in that happy go lucky era of pop with songs like "Shake It Off" and "Fancy" being big hits then.