The ‘loudness wars’ was a phenomenon that came to the forefront of music discourse in 2008 with the record ‘death magnetic’, however it can be dated back to the 1940s. With the popularity of jukeboxes in the 40s, a bar owner would set the volume and leave it, meaning any louder song would stand out, this being the cornerstone of the loudness wars. Over the years with the invention of new technology, music has been able to be made louder. By 2008 Rick Rubin was one of the worst culprits for the unnecessary compression and noise that typified the loudness wars, with the most obvious examples being ‘death magnetic’ and ‘californication’.
The compression on death magnetic introduced huge amounts of noise and digitally distorts on the CD, being criticised by almost everyone who listens. At this point it was clear that this extremity was unpopular, and when guns and roses were mixing ‘Chinese democracy’ they rejected the louder mix in favour of a quieter yet more dynamic mix. By now, most streaming platforms have audio normalisation, and will start automatically turning down music that’s too loud. This, to some degree, levels the playing field again as now everyone knows what degree of loudness is acceptable before penalty.
This will certainly affect my future work, as while I do appreciate a loud track I value dynamics within my music more. While being the loudest song played might definitely jump out while on the radio for example, if anything a listener actively engaging and turning your song up is a much more impressive achievement. This in combination with preservation of dynamic range is much more appealing.
Metallica Death magnetic – how to lose the Loudness War (2008) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIACDCc1I (Accessed: 18 April 2024).
(No date) Gateway Mastering & DVD. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20090131045144/http://gatewaymastering.com/gateway_LoudnessWars.asp (Accessed: 18 April 2024).
Frampton, T. (2024) Mastering audio for Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube, Mastering The Mix. Available at: https://www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/76296773-mastering-audio-for-soundcloud-itunes-spotify-and-youtube (Accessed: 18 April 2024).