What’s a surefire way to make sure an audience hears and appreciates a song? An iconic hook? Catchy lyrics? Craftsmanship and talent?
Not according to the record labels. From their perspective, if you want to be successful, you need to be LOUD. This belief has been held as gospel for decades, launching what would become known as the Loudness War, and threatening to destroy dynamic music in the process.
It all started in the early 1960s. An emerging Motown were starting to find success on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to artists including Steven Wonder, The Supremes, and Four Tops. When competing labels started analysing the factors that made these songs hits, they discovered Motown were requesting mastering engineers raise the volume of 7″ singles for distribution in jukeboxes and to radio stations. That meant when they were played, they were louder than the other songs, and would likely draw more attention as a result.
That didn’t mean the songs were popular simply because they were harder to ignore, but for companies perpetually pursuing an edge, not boosting their own volumes wasn’t worth the risk. Levels were raised, and so the first losses were inflicted in the Loudness War. However, the limitations of vinyl meant that volumes could be amplified so far before it made the record physically unplayable.
This was only a skirmish compared to what was coming.
The real war commenced in the 1980s, with the introduction of Compact Discs. While the revolutionary digital medium was initially seen as too expensive for mass production, its greater flexibility saw it become the dominant medium towards the end of the decade. So long as the volume did not exceed the peak level of 0 decibel (dB), labels didn’t need to worry about the CD being unusable, or sounds distorting. At the time, the average album was being recorded at -16.8 dB to allow for greater dynamic range, allowing individual elements of the track to rise above the rest. Yet as the years progressed, labels pushed producers to narrow the range between the average level and the peak further and further. Oasis went to -8 dB on (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, while the remaster of The Stooges’ Raw Power hit -4 dB. ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man peaked at a ludicrous -0.1 dB.
The resulting music was noisy but flaccid; a fireworks show with all the bangs, but none of the accompanying flashes of lights to make fans go “wow!”. The situation was only made worse when the albums were played on lower-quality systems, or when radio stations applied their own compression before sending the track out on the airwaves.
“You listen to these modern records, they’re atrocious, they have sound all over them. There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like—static,” said Bob Dylan. Ironically, two of his albums – Modern Times and Together Through Life – both suffered from hyper-compression.
Below is a video that provides a quick example of the damage the Loudness War has on a song:
Whether the war is now at an end is something audiophiles are fiercely debating. Some claim the end came about in 2008 when Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo chose the most dynamic version of their album Chinese Democracy for release. “(the) fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level,” announced a thrilled Bob Ludwig, master engineer on the album. Of course, the album came out only two months after Metallica’s Death Magnetic, which was mastered at an average volume even louder than the buffer ‘red zone’, which warns of potential compression. Over 22,000 listeners signed a petition requesting the album be ‘fixed’.
Real progress came in 2013, when Apple implemented a standardised volume level for labels submitting tracks to iTunes Radio. “The Loudness War has been won!” declared mastering engineer Bob Katz, a prominent figure in the fight for greater dynamic range.
Another development arrived in 2015, with Youtube normalising volume on tracks being uploaded.
Are these changes enough, however? Apple and Youtube’s processes are important, but they are akin to the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein: sure, bringing something back from the dead is a great feat, but the result is still a monstrous relic of what it once was.
Ultimately, it’s up to either the entire industry to set standards for what they will accept, or the labels themselves. If the only people complaining are a few engineers and some extremely keen fans, that’s not enough to restore the purity of the raw tracks. Perhaps, after all and said and done, it isn’t even a serious issue. Surely though, anything that disrupts an artist’s integrity is worth addressing.
Do you believe the Loudness War needs to come to an end, once and for all? Or should we be focusing on the greater issues currently being faced by the industry? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.