“Loudness War”

This was an interesting article about the trend of people increasing the volume of music. The article discusses technical terms for audio but overall focuses on how the louder the music is the less quality it has. They do provide a history of the transformation of music consumption from vinyl to CDs to the digital format that is being used today.

“Loudness War and Peace”

The video breaks down the existence and reasoning for “loudness” and its start during the 1980s till recent years in the early 2000s. He calls the causes of “loudness” ‘accelerants’ and he describes what they are and why they made music sound so loud. He also discusses his experience with creating musical tracks for clients and disliking the “loudness” they the clients wanted. Though his commentary seems a bit like he is against whatever is ‘new’ in music he actually does go through the different genres of music and review how it used to sound before the “loudness war” started. I can appreciate his point of view since he does not discriminate against certain genres of music and he has been involved in the music industry for years.

“Has pop music lost its fun?”

This piece makes five majors claims regarding the “loudness war” which are sadder and slower, simpler and louder, antisocial and angry, just not as good as it used to be, and more repetitive. Before I could listen or read anything else I already had the thought that this article was going to be the perspective of someone who dislikes mainstream ‘pop’ music and is placing their opinions of what music has become into the “loudness war”. After reading more of the article I think the author can support a few of their claims with the studies they cited. I think they should have just stuck to those claims that have some sort of actual data to prove their point instead of making claims like ‘just not as good as it used to be’ to describe pop music because it makes them seem bias.