What I think you are hearing is a deliberate result of the choices made by the record producer, often called the "wall-of-sound."
However it is not adopted by all genres and all recordings.
Audiophile Goal Perfect Center Image
I know the audiophile goal is to have the two speakers disappear and have the musical image floating in the center. My question is, why not use a single column Line array facing the listener. In these systems they project sound 180 degrees. The demo I heard was by a company named Wisdom Audio. It was a 9 foot column made up of multiple small drivers. That one column filled a very large listening space with seemingly 360 degree sound! Of course they also had outboard subwoofers for full range sound and expensive electronics. Incredible experience! Track: Takla Makan by Yello. I know we have two ears but when I went to a live concert recently the sound was coming from that one musician, not from the left or right 10-15 feet apart like speakers are placed. Why do we need two speakers if the goal is to make them sound like they are coming from one source?