I don't use Apple Music either. I just dislike the idea of not owning something so near and dear to me.

It works OK for me after turning off the "Show Apple Music" option in Settings->Music.

The only really annoying bit left after that is touching a band name link doesn't take me to that band in my library, it goes to some Apple Music type page with everything available, not just what I own.

Wouldn't your music also show up in the rest of your library? The "Downloaded Music" section is just music that's already on your phone and therefore you can listen to without an internet connection. But everything in there should also be present in the other sections of your library.

It gets mixed in with that free U2 album and all the various Starbucks codes I redeemed 10 years ago :/

You can hide music from your library. Apple put out a support page on how to do exactly that something like a week after the U2 debacle.

Here's how to delete from iCloud Music Library: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201323

Here's how to delete iTunes Store content: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204343

For the latter, it says that deleting something you haven't downloaded will hide it from your purchase history as well.

Well you imported those Starbucks songs yourself so you can't really blame Apple for that. Try the "Delete from Library" option -- it works great.

Perhaps but I never explicitly requested or copied that music to my phone, yet it appears there anyway.

Use another app. I've just moved from the built-in Music app to Ecoute and it is so, so much simpler.

Thanks for the tip. Apple's first-party apps used to be top-notch :( Part of the reason I switched from Android was to avoid this kind of BS