To continue the discussion with nerd as to "Content". I agree that this is an area of serious generation gap.
If I can use the analogy of cigarettes. They are a vehicle for the delivery of nicotine. The nicotine is in the tobacco, which is wrapped in a paper tube and then sold in a pack.
To us "old fogeys" as you call us..(there we go again, lazy labelling, I'll just go and get me arran sweater!).. a song is a vehicle for the the delivery of ideas and imagery contained in words and wrapped in music. When you quite rightly say that pyrotechnics, lights, dancing, visuals etc are what people now go for it seems to me that the pack is now the object of desire and not the cigarettes it contains.
It's the same as people who collect books for the dustwrappers.
It gives them pleasure and harms no one, but it's just not really what books are for.
Still, films used to be about plot and character.
"Change and decay all around I see"
Oh dear, what's an old fogey look like?