Why Loud Music Mixes Suck

We live in an era of loud music mixing. Radio has done this for years, by compressing the audio and playing it back louder than it occurs on the original recording, so that when a listener comes across their station, it will stand out and grab their attention. But today's music engineers have sought loudness in original recordings, and it is ruining the sound of the music we listen to.

When recording music for playback, it seems desirable to make it loud. But this overlooks the simple fact that the LISTENER ultimately controls the volume. And loud mixes ruin one of the most important elements of music: dynamics. Like all forms of art, one of the ways music impacts us is through dynamics: louds and softs, rises and falls, emotional highs and lows. Loud mixing removes all of these qualities. When everything is loud, there is no longer loud and soft. It's the same as if YOU WRITE EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. When everything is emphasized, nothing is emphasized. It also creates ear fatigue.

This is a waveform (a visual representation of sound) from a track recorded in 1981:

And here is the same track, remastered in 2005:

The recording has been pushed to its limits, maximizing the loudness, but also swelling the softer parts, so that the entire track plays "loud." But of course, when I adjust the volume to listen to it at my preferred setting, it no longer seems loud, it just seems flat.

This waveform is from Metallica's 2009 release, Death Magnetic. Does this look like music to you?

There is an excellent explanation of this problem at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ