If you dig around through those wikipedia links there is an article that notes that the average loudness of CD's has gone from an "average RMS" of -18dB in the late 1980's to -9dB today (with the "Raw Power" CD clocking in at -4dB, still the loudest thing ever!)
But ideas like "harmonic progression" (as opposed to "riffs" and "beats") and "musicianship" (as opposed to click-tracking and pitch-cleaning all the "individual style" out of a performance) went out decades ago, so it's not like there's much "detail" to go missing by loudness-compressing the latest releases by My Sunday Bath or Clattrd Fyst (just making up some typical nu-metal/emo band names there!)
I'd be curious to see some sort of analysis of how many chords a hit song had in 1965 compared to today . . . or how many tempo / time changes (remember when songs used to speed up and slow down???)
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