Listening to Music Since 1980

Alex Ross's superb book The Rest is Noise has a great website addendum, full of listening examples. Of particular interest, see this page which features numerous sound examples from music since 1980. I am especially struck by the piece by Golijov, which hardly sounds like "classical" music at all. The Gerard Grisey excerpt sounds as if it was lifted from the TV show "Lost," which is not intended as faint praise! And I continue to be excited by the music I hear from Sofia Gubaidulina.

The larger philosophical question, as you listen: where's the joy? Where's the uptempo music?