[plain talk]

“There were a LOT worse tunes in 1975.”

Yep. There was good stuff on rock albums in the 60s and 70s and then lots of slop for the masses on AM radio.

Here’s one even worse than Captain and Tennille — “Philadephia Freedom” by Elton John released in Feb 1975. “... took me knee-high to a man, yeah gave me piece of mind my Daddy never had.”

[dfwgator]

Yep, that was the year Elton jumped the shark.

[Dr. Sivana]

Here’s one even worse than Captain and Tennille — “Philadephia Freedom” by Elton John released in Feb 1975. “... took me knee-high to a man, yeah gave me piece of mind my Daddy never had.”

That shot up to #1 and stayed there for two weeks.

If you can set aside the lyrics for a bit, it is perfectly melodic, and the Gene Page arrangement (strings, woodwinds) a very light touch despite sharing some elements of peak-Disco, there is really nothing wrong with it.

Compare that with current stuff which is barely arranged at all, with mashups, sampling, auto-tune, and mis-employed synthesizers. By comparison, the Captain and Tennille used synthesizers A LOT, and more primitive ones, but Darryl Dragon knew how to employ them artfully for a Pop Sound.

You have to accept pop music on its own terms. Rick Wakeman and Frank Zappa won't be on top of the singles charts.