“Loudness Wars” is ruining music audio quality
In a bid to sell more music tracks the music industry has been slowly turning up the loudness of recorded music to get it noticed over rival music. This practice is known as the “Loudness Wars” or loudness race.
These days the trend is to listen to music via the radio or (crappy) MP3 so the effects go mostly unnoticed. However, a tipping point is now being reached where recordings are so loud they are actually harming the quality of the recording with audible annoyances.
Take Death Magnetic, an album recently released by Metallica. The audio quality is so bad that it becomes an impossible listen. The recording is highly compressed, brickwalled, distorted, clipped and lacks any dynamic range. So much so, there’s now a petition for it to be remastered, and fans are forced to rip the version from Guitar Hero 3.
Album sales are down, single sales are up. It’s a sign of another throw-away industry where punters have a relentless appetite for the new. Along the way, those who enjoy their music for the longer term are penalised.