Lots of great links here. As usual, there is a technology shift behind the current trend in popular music.
I think all the stuff about louder songs playing better in pubs misses the real point -- they're mixing everything for download-to-ipod for presumably young urban listeners who use their ipods to drown out the sounds of the streets and subways etc.
"Nobody" listens to music on a "stereo" anymore!
I thought this article was interesting: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1878724.ece
. . . for the notion that over-compressed "everything louder than everything else" music is acutally "fatiguing" to listen to.
I certainly think so -- this explains why so much of the modern major label popular music manages to be both "in your face obnoxious" and "bland and flat-sounding" at the same time.
The one "good" example of this trend I can think of is Iggy's 1996 remaster of "Raw Power" -- it's radically different than the original mix in every way, but I thought he actually did a good job of transfering the "idea" of how the original was mixed into digital (redline digital sounds totally different from redline analog.) Of course, this disc sounds like total crap through the wrong CD player / set of speakers!! Sometimes it clips like crazy and sounds awful . . . but even that's kind of cool in a way: a challenge to your stereo!
(If you want a really extreme example of a band that used a VAST dynamic range compared to today, try loading an early King Crimson epic into a sound editor and check out the waveform! Can't wait to see how the "flatline mix" of THAT will sound!!)
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