TIL the loudness war already peaked more than a decade ago
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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It comes and goes. Youtubers seemed to be reviving it recently, no doubt spurred on by some kind of superstition about what The Algorithm wanted — to the point where Youtube itself was moved to step into the fray with its "stable volume" bullshit.
I am all to familiar with this and I hate it. People praise the sound of vinyl as superior without realizing it has nothing to do with the format. It's because they use better dynamic mixes. Why they can't put those same mixes on CD or streaming is beyond me.
So much great music is just unlistenable to me because it gives me a fucking headache to listen to. My sister told me to listen to Knocked Loose thinking I'd like it. Musically, yes I did. It would be great if it wasn't the most compressed garbage sounding recording I had ever heard. I get it's a hardcore band but I've heard some very dynamic grindcore and powerviolence bands that sound great.
Dear artists, sound engineers, mixers, and whoever else please fucking stop.
Glad they mentioned the Metallica album. It was really bad. Fortunately the Guitar Hero version, which didn’t have the horrible effects, leaked online. I think it’s what you get if you stream it (like Apple Music) but those CDs are never getting fixed.
There's three mixes. The original CD mix, the iTunes mix (which is the one currently on streaming), and the Guitar Hero mix. The CD is obviously the worst of the three. The iTunes mix is a legitimate improvement but still not as dynamic as the Guitar Hero mix. I have all three of these and only one of them do I actually enjoy listening to.
Oldest trick in the book.
Want to trick someone into buying a more expensive audio product?
Just let them "try" it and play the music a little louder on the thing you want them to buy.
I teach about this to my students and they are stunned by then diffence when we listened to overcompressed vs lightly compressed tracks. It might be seducing at first, but loudness maximize tracks will cause ear fatigue so much quickly. The disparition of dynamics in the 2000 is one of theb worst thing that happened to music. Amongs the biggest culprits are RHCP Californication and Death Magnetic by Metalika.
The only real positive thing I will give to streaming platforms is to "punish" tracks that are too loud thus enciuraging people to mix with lufs.