While it does sound cliché and it is definitely subjective, music today definitely isn't as emotionally intriguing as it used to. There is concrete evidence to why that is.

Changing Styles of the Times

Last century was an eventful one for music. Almost every decade had its own distinct and instantly recognizable sound. However, up until the modern day, music always had three things in common: melody, harmony, and rhythm. Each musical style had its own take on these three elements but, nonetheless, all of them were present.

For example, classical music was very based on fourths and fifths. It focused on multiple voices playing at the same time, usually played by entire sections of a large orchestra or by each finger of a piano player. Jazz focused on felt rhythms that were not straight, different levels of swung rhythms, and notes borrowed from scales not in the original key of the song. Rock and its many subgenres focused on its hard, grunge-like sounds with guitars and straight simple drum beats, along with lyrics reflecting the time.

The only slight hiccup in this trend began with funk. Starting in the 60's all the way into the 80's, funk music switched up the way people understood music

Funk and Its Effects

Funk music was solely focused on rhythm. Artists like James Brown regularly recorded songs that stood on the same chord for the entire 3-5 minute duration. Absolutely no melody or harmony change. This really brought out the rhythm section (the guitar, bass, drums, and any other auxiliary percussion) and the vocalist. These two elements were then expected to modulate more in the rhythm to keep the song engaging. This style became dance music.

From this style, a new norm was normalized. DJ's began to play funk at clubs so people would dance, but found it would get very boring very quickly. To solve this, they began rhythmically speaking to the audience live on the mic to encourage dancing and to introduce new sounds to keep it interesting. This practice evolved into rapping and the rest is history

Music nowadays doesn't feel the same as it used to because now, songs that are missing a key element from past music have been normalized. This is why music today can seem empty, boring, and not engaging.