Specifically:

* One that removes the bard songs. I've only been playing for a few hours, and I'm already tired of those songs. It doesn't help that they're not performed very well to start with. (Edit: Found one that prevents bards from singing unless you request a song.)

* One that removes the annoying "NPCs have to tell you their life's story every time you walk by them" thing. Seriously? What is that?? If I want to hear anything about you, I'll ASK. Seems to me that would better encourage player interaction with the world, like reading books to find out what's in them, instead of getting a summary by mousing over it.

Anyway, are there mods that do this?

I couldn't the anything for the first one (I am sure I missed it) but the second one has a http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/746/?!

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/746/

This stops NPCs from yelling their life's story at you from across the street.

As for the bard songs. There might be one that removes them completely, but I haven't spotted it. Try searching on the nexus for "bard" and see what pops out. I do know there are some replacers with better performances around.

Edit: You would think Fluttershy would be too nice for Internet-ninja action...

For the bards, http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8842/? may help.