Allow me to deviate briefly from my normal format and bitch about something completely unrelated to politics or philosophy: The Loudness War.

Roughly fourteen years ago, I purchased my first CD album, Howard Jones’ Greatest Hits. An excellent collection from a talented man, no doubt. As a young, budding geek, I was amazed at the sound quality (this is after spending my life listening to cassette tapes – remember those?). I didn’t know dynamic range from frequency response, but I knew I would never buy another cassette tape. In fact, shortly thereafter, I purchased the Dire Straits album Brothers In Arms because the cover boasted that it was a “full digital recording.”

Part of the advantage of digital media – MP3s, CDs, DAT, etc. – is that it can reproduce what’s referred to as “dynamic range” with unparalleled accuracy. Dynamic range is, simply put, the amount of difference between the softest sound and the loudest sound in a recording. AM radio, for example, has terrible dynamic range, and this is fine because Rush Limbaugh is just as smart/stupid/funny/entertaining/annoying regardless of sound quality. Most DVD movies, however, have excellent dynamic range: this is what makes the explosions in Die Hard stand out from the “yippie ki ay, motherf*cker” immediately preceding them.

Back when I purchased Howard Jones’ Greatest Hits, recorded music was another example of excellent dynamic range; that is, the sounds stood out from one another. When a drummer hit a cymbal, it actually crashed. Snare drums had a sudden, snappy punch to them. Acoustic guitars reflected subtle ambiance and warm tones. Bass lines seemed separate from other instruments on a track. When Eddie Van Halen launched into a guitar solo, it stood out from the rest of the song, not just musically, but aurally as well.

Not so anymore. Enter the Loudness War: the compression of all recorded music to a throughly asinine degree. This trend essentially kills dynamic range in almost all of new, recorded music. My theory is that since the late ’90s, there is, in every mastering house, some asshole standing over the shoulder of every producer or mastering technician saying “Louder, dammit! Make it LOUDER!”

I failed to notice the source of this insanity when it first began in the late 90′s. Napster got the best of me, and while I’m not proud of it, I essentially didn’t purchase any music between 1997 and 2002. As a result, I assumed that the degradation in quality was due to the fact that the music I listened to was retrieved from personal computers in dorm rooms across the country, and was probably mutilated in the process. Now I know better.

Still confused? Try this: FM radio is a good example of heavily compressed audio. In order to maintain the stability of their signal, FM radio stations have to control the fluctuation of volume in the signal sent to their transmitters. In order to do this, they employ what’s known as a compressor, which makes sure that all of the various frequencies of the signal stay within a specific range. This is what gives FM radio that constant, unwaivering, steady volume level we’re all used to. It’s the reason you never have to adjust the volume because the sound suddenly got too loud.

Here’s another fun fact about audio compression: Ever wonder why you have to turn your television down during commercial breaks? You know what I’m talking about… one moment you’re watching Tommy Boy on USA. All is well. Then, without warning, a McDonald’s commercial is blaring at you with what seems like twice the volume, waking up the kids, scaring the hell out of the dog, and requiring you to leave the couch momentarily to retrieve a change of underwear. This leads one logically to the question “why do they turn up the volume during the commercials?” The answer is that they don’t: The peak volume level is the same as the movie, but all the audio is cranked to 11 for the duration of the commercial!

Unfortunately, it would seem that most contemporary music radio stations can throw out their compressors – at least when it comes to the music they play. CDs purchased today have virtually no dynamic range whatsoever. Producers think we like this. I hate it. In fact, I can honestly say that with very few exceptions, all of the recordings I’ve heard in the past five years have sounded like shit.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the waveform (that is, a visual representation) of Al Stewart’s 1976 recording, Year of the Cat:

Note the different levels from the beginning of the song – a solo piano – to the first verses, to the bridge, where the peak levels are reached. This is how a song sounds when it is heard live.

Now take a gander at the waveform of Maroon 5′s 2007 recording, Makes Me Wonder:

It’s basically one big, solid block. There’s no way of identifying the different parts of the song because it’s been compressed to the point of absurdity. This is how a song sounds when the morons running the record industry (the same people who brought you DRM) get their hands on it.

LOUDER, DAMNIT! MAKE IT LOUDER! MY RIGHT EARDRUM STILL ISN’T BLEEDING!

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that off and on, I supplement my meager salary as a graduate assistant at East Tennessee State University by recording voiceovers and producing radio liners (the things you hear in between songs on the radio). And yes, I run everything through a compressor. In fact, I use deep compression. But I do this because radio liners are short and designed to stand out (not to mention the fact that every radio signal is highly compressed anyway), which means they don’t produce the “ear fatigue” one gets after listening to an album recorded in the past 10 years straight through. Short bits with lots of fancy sweepers, drops, and a bunch of crazy effects sound better this way. Music does not.

So remember this the next time you pull out your iPod, and remember that it never hurts to dispatch a polite, yet irate letter to your favorite record producer / record label.