Question on hearing

Besides declines in hearing ability with age, your mind also has a large store of memories now that it didn't have when you were young, and that likely affects emotional response to music, not to mention the hormone issue.

I sympathize with you psag.
As others have posted, it may be that we experienced that excitement because it was new to us.
I was beginning to feel like you did, but streaming music allowed me to find lots of genres that I never explored before.
I love late classical/early romantic music. Now I have access to composers I never heard of, and music from composers I knew but never thought wrote music other than what I heard on the radio- Like Hummel, Vanhal and Dussek.
Bob 

@psag I think there's still plenty of emotions to be mined from music even after suffering aging and hearing loss. 

While I don't experience the marijuana induced epiphanies of my youth any longer, there is still music that engages me. Maybe it sets a melancholy mood or gets my feet jumping or evokes a time passed. 

Thnking about it, much of my recent music emotion have come from the soundtracks of motion pictures. Whether it was a score written for the movie or a song - or group of songs - hearing them later always sets my emotion to the scene it accompanied. 

Then there's opera. And Youtube and those Flashmob videos.  In the last year Sturgill Simpson made my heart soar, Margo Price made me laugh out loud, Radiohead made me wonder what the heck, and Ramin Djawadi did these wonderful piano covers of some old and classic rock songs for the Westworld soundtrack.

Back in the day I couldn't imagine enjoying music without a little mind alteration. But no more. So change things up a bit. If you're imbibing while listening, try stopping. If you're not imbibing or doing anything mind-altering, well, I am certainly not going to be the one to recommend it but I understand it has worked for others. 

"I have tested and tasted too much, lover.
Through a chink too wide, there comes in no wonder."
---Advent, Kavanagh.