Five Before Chaos

Those of you who are my regular readers know I’m pretty much a fossil when it comes to music. Like Homer Simpson once said, everybody knows rock ‘n roll peaked around 1975. I’m pretty much a 1965-75 kinda guy, whatever the genre. Every now and then, something new catches my ear, but not too often. Whatever. I don’t listen to radio much, but when I do, one thing I notice is how friggin’ LOUD the newer stuff sounds today, like the whole song just pumps out at one volume, with very little dynamic range. Well, I’m not crazy. Although a bit on the technical side at times, Suhas Sreedhar’s article over at Spectrum Online confirms this:

The loudness war, what many audiophiles refer to as an assault on music (and ears), has been an open secret of the recording industry for nearly the past two decades and has garnered more attention in recent years as CDs have pushed the limits of loudness thanks to advances in digital technology. The “war” refers to the competition among record companies to make louder and louder albums. But the loudness war could be doing more than simply pumping up the volume and angering aficionados-it could be responsible for halting technological advances in sound quality for years to come…

The 1990s saw average amplitude levels go from around -15 dBFS to as much as -6 dBFS in extreme cases. Most songs in this decade, however, remained at around -12 dBFS. The 2000s saw the loudness war reach its height, with most current songs having an average level of -9 dBFS or higher. From the mid 1980s to now, the average loudness of CDs increased by a factor of 10, and the peaks of songs are now one-tenth of what they used to be. The loudness war is also not just confined to the big four record companies (Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony BMG, and Universal Music Group). Overcompression is now widespread and performed by independent labels and international record companies.

The only thing worse than crappy music is LOUD crappy music. Now you know.

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