It's probably because this guy wrote it:
Listen to a whole album. This is THE fundamental problem with streaming.
Any band that produced one good song probably produced quite a few other good ones. Bands that got pigeonholed into a "sound" probably produced other songs on their albums that weren't in that sound.
Even for mega-popular bands like "Journey", for example, 3/4 of the songs on their albums never get played anywhere. You'll probably find something you really like in that set.
Sadly, this seems to break down starting in the late 1990s.
The best place too look for these (since the pigeonholing is often at the very start of their commercial recording, with the label pushing them into a particular niche) is stuff later than their most popular works (which are often what fuels their ability to ditch the narrow commercial optimization strategy that the label would impose for riskier, more diverse approaches.)
Well, as you mentioned yourself, there are lots of great musicians doing their thing, but mostly flying under the radar - you just have to find them, which has become easier thanks to Spotify et al. But then it's sad to see that they only have 30.000 or even 3.000 "monthly listeners", while Ava Max has 30.000.000. And, I did notice that even for new music I tend to be attracted to stuff that sounds more or less "retro", but I guess most music that's not > 90% electronically processed sounds retro nowadays.
Ultimately, curation matters. If iheartmedia doesn't care about your personal interests then none of the toplists are going to be useful to you. Find individual curators who are principled and like what you like instead.
I like old music because old music really is better. Most of the (non-"alt") music that I listen to was written and recorded before I was born.
It's not that old music is "killing" new music. It's that new music has been slowly killing itself since the 2000s. Even the Backstreet Boys and Three 6 Mafia seem fresh and interesting compared to the stuff I've been hearing on the radio over the last decade.
Even probably the best (IMO) pop artist of the current era, Stromae, writes songs that are mostly the same hooks and background elements repeated over and over for 4 minutes, with no change in dynamics or structure.
I'm honestly pretty sick of all the 60s-80s stuff I've been listening to, but what else is there?
Don't get me wrong: there was plenty of stupid garbage in those decades too. But the great stuff truly is great beyond most of what we get today, at least when it comes to stuff that's considered "mainstream".
But if the record industry wants to destroy itself, who am I to stop them? Keep listening to (and paying for!!) alt stuff, that's where the personality and creativity is.