Yeah rock spirit definitely, but I think the 2005ish (maybe 2007) mark has a significance here. Until somewhere there the traits you mentioned were rewarded, most big names had a solid background in that regard (Madonna, Shakira, Gwen Stefani, Shania Twain ....) and it also took like 5-10 years to really establish someone. This imo also coincides with the death of the album and album songs, music videos and a far more fast paced industry.Of course not everything had substance, there was a lot of silly stuff, but with high end and/or multi decade artists there was usually some substance somewhere.
Another thing that is quite striking is how many new names are bad movers in terms of their dancing ability, like Dua Lipa for example is a terrible mover and she isn´t the only one.
2007 or thereabout is when Internet became really mainstream and the music industry suffered big time
Monoculture was on life-support from then-on and eventually died
When TV(and to a lesser extent Radio) was the dominant form of entertainment the music industry could easily blast whoever they wanted to your ears and you really couldn't escape it back then
There are still songs from back in the day I remember, like for example Can't Fight the Moonlight by LeAnn Rimes which I still to this day don't remember where I first heard it from, the exposure was just huge even here in Kosovo
With the Internet you can just choose not to click the featured videos on youtube and you won't have to listen to anything you don't want to
The mainstream music industry has never been the same since then
Now in 2025 it seems to have gotten crazy with the whole AI stuff and Spotify, it's a completely different landscape
Sometimes I watch this producer guy on youtube Rick Beato sharing his views on the current industry and he also interviews some legends like The Police, David Gilmour, Hans Zimmer, Pat Metheny, Yngwie Malmsteen etc. the list goes on
Very good channel
The general gist I gathered from his videos is that the industry doesn't seem to want to invest on creating artists