Music bought with a defunt apple ID

I have a couple albums bought years ago under a now defunct apple ID. This was the family account, which no longer exists. I simply started using my own six years ago or so. My old laptop (7.5 years!) was authorized under both, so there was never any issue. I recently bought a new laptop, but the authorizations did not transfer automatically. While I easily authorized the new computer for iTunes under my current Apple ID, I cannot do so for the old account. This may be because I no longer remember the password for the old account, but it is more likely that it is defunct. The email for it no longer exists, while no new email was ever attached to it. So every so often now I get a prompt to enter a password for a dead account, and cannot listen to that music. Very frustrating!

The same defunct account caused related issues on another computer in the household, but the associated apps were free. So, I simply reinstalled them. It looks like I need to pay Apple again to perform the same procedure with the music. That may total up to 30$ or more, and that's after locating the music under the defunct account. Do I have any other options?