Some interesting observations here.

My personal experience: I'm more a singles person than an album person. I make an annual compilation of around 26 favourite singles of that year (roughly the amount that would fit on a 90 minute cassette, which I used to use). I've got annual compilations going back to 1982 (when I was seven).

Yet despite this, since 2020, my enthusiasm for constantly discovering new pop music has started to wane. I'm not sure why. It could be a combination of 1) The effect of the pandemic, 2) Massive change of life (I went from full time job to full time writer), 3) Family commitments, and 4) Lack of time. I don't think it is lack of interest or age, but who knows?

I still make annual singles compilations, but I'm behind on it (I haven't even finished putting together my list for last year). I do think music so far this decade has featured little that I'm really excited about, unlike the 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s. Weirdly, my children (19 and 15) are a lot more anti-modern music than I am, and much prefer listening to music from the 20th Century.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts. As an aside, I get less excited about film scores these days too. I used to buy soundtrack albums all the time (especially John Williams).