You could use modern flyout. It allows you to increase or decrease (also to 0) the number active of media sessions displayed. Source: about 1 year ago

If you don't want to mess around with any of your program's settings, you can install ModernFlyouts and change its' settings to never show any popups. Source: about 1 year ago

Modern​Flyouts for better looking flyouts for volume and media. Source: over 1 year ago

This may not be the perfect fix you are looking for, but I faced the same problem as you (wanted flyouts but also wanted explorerpatcher for other functionality that it brought), and my solution was to use ModernFlyouts (link here). Source: over 1 year ago

You can try ModernFlyouts, it has a few customization options so maybe you can get a more minimal experience that way https://modernflyouts-community.github.io/. Source: over 1 year ago

I used Vanilla for the longest time for my top menu bar icons, but once I got a MacBook Pro with the notch, it just didn't work well. I've since moved on to Bartender for managing my menu bar. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago

If I’m recording a full screen capture for videos, I like to hide the app icons at the top of the screen. I use Vanilla for this. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago

Vanilla. But here you are sure to find more of your liking. Source: over 1 year ago

I use (and quite like) Vanilla. https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/. Source: almost 2 years ago

This is a more general solution. But I really like this one to get control over what I want to hide https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/. Source: about 2 years ago