Loudness War: Albums you've listened to that really suffer

I've been pretty lucky to have mostly avoided albums that are victims to the dastardly product of modern music known as the Loudness War. However, I was just listening to the Phineas And Ferb Holiday Favorites album (at least, the CD version, dunno about the digital version), and ye gods are some of the songs on it distorted as hell (the vocals in "Good King Wenceslas" and the entirety of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" seem to suffer especially). Keep in mind, this isn't an album much more high profile than soundtracks to other children's cartoons. I can't see how making it louder would help in any way.

Any other releases you've heard that are way too loud/distorted/clip...py? (And before everyone says this one, I know, Death Magnetic.)

There's a huge list already at Record of Loudness War.

Edit: Oh, I see they got rid of that pointless, obscure reference in the title. It redirects to Loudness War.

edited 9th Jan '12 10:07:37 PM by BoundByTheMoon

Yeah, but I'm wondering about people's own personal experiences.

Artificial Soldier

It's so loud I have to turn down my iPod.

Don't get me started on the Loudness War. Whoever started that needs to be shot in the face. Twice.

The digital "remastering" of Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime *

/raeg

edited 10th Jan '12 12:08:29 AM by drunkscriblerian

The Darkest Red by The Agony Scene. It's just LOUD.

I scan every album I get for ReplayGain and foo_ipod converts it to Sound Check automatically. The loudness war is my bitch.

I tried this on Pinkerton one time, and it became completely inaudible.

If that's compared to unscanned audio, that's not surprising. Pinkerton is a mainstream rock album and its ReplayGain value is likely to be high.

edited 10th Jan '12 10:28:39 AM by Litis

Dark Passion Play by Nightwish. "Whoever Brings The Night" came on my iPod yesterday, and the orchestra hits just drowned out everything else.

Hopes and Fears by Keane. There’s no reason it needs to be that loud.

The two albums by the Japanese jazz fusion band Machine and the Synergetic Nuts suffer from this badly, so badly they become unlistenable. Thus they’re probably the worst example I can think of. One expects this with songs by, say, Kedollarsignha, not music that demands subtlety and nuance.

Some remasters are spoiled by this. EMI Electrola are really bad about this, check out their remasters of Eloy and Triumvirat albums.

The single version of Lana Del Rey's "Video Games" has horrible brickwalling and clipping to the point where her high notes on the chorus are distorted. I fear her upcoming Born to Die album will be affected the same way. What a shame because it's such a pretty song and she has a great voice.

Additionally, the "boombox demos" on the Nirvana Nevermind remaster sets. They've brickwalled lo-fi recordings! That defeats the purpose and makes what little you can make out completely unlistenable.

edited 10th Jan '12 2:05:56 PM by DocStrange

While I like Alice In Chains' Black Gives Way To Blue album, I feel that the brickwalling is something that is left to be appreciated. Considering how it was mastered by the same guy who mastered Death Magnetic, this isn't surprising.

edited 10th Jan '12 2:47:02 PM by x86x2

It seems that the Record of Loudness War seems to be mostly on pop, rock, and metal albums.

Actually, i've heard some reports of some folk and alternative country records being affected.

The first time I read Wikipedia's article on the topic, I remember it had a list of albums that someone, somewhere, had said were victims of the loudness war. I was surprised to see that Johnny Cash's album The Man Comes Around was on the list. But maybe I shouldn't have been, since it was produced by Rick Rubin.

Weird Al Yankovic's Poodle Hat suffers from it. Combined with how quickly the parodies on that album became outdated, it's easily Al's weakest album.

Irony of ironies, it's probably his most represented album in his concerts these days.

Besides Polka Party?

Polka Party aged better and Christmas at Ground Zero used to be his most-played song on radio (most stations only pulled it due to 9/11 and the song's dark themes).

I think the reason for its weak reception was that it wasn't as parody-heavy as his other albums (it's also one of his shortest albums).

Meanwhile, Poodle Hat has aged poorly and it's simply not a memorable album of his. His next two albums were major improvements though.

edited 11th Jan '12 4:37:06 PM by Buscemi

Is it bad that I don't really notice a difference between volumes? I have had some songs that are softer than others, but usually that's because I got them bootleg online or something.

Clutch. Oh boy.

Especially their song "Electric Worry", a renamed Mississippi Fred McDowell cover. It's a very good and exciting cover, but it would be so much more exciting if there was actually a difference in volume between the "quiet" and the "loud" sections.

The song starts with a "quiet" intro. Then at 0:23, they start building up tension, which is supposed to be released at 0:34 - but the "release of tension" feels half-hearted and disappointing. This wouldn't be the case if the song actually got significantly louder at that point, but that isn't possible because the intro is already very loud. A textbook example of the way the Loudness War takes the fun out of music.

Something I only realized recently, now that I've become a Kanye West fan—his music is horribly loud. When I'm half asleep with my iPod on shuffle, the transition between any other song and a Kanye song wakes me the frick up. With the volume at the lowest it could possibly be.

This is all over the place in country, of all genres.

All of Frank Liddell's productions are horribly compressed and fuzzy. Miranda Lambert, David Nail, Eli Young Band. It's nearly distracting.

Tony Brown is also guilty of it at times, especially on Jake Owen's Barefoot Blue Jean Night. "Alone with You" is one of my favorite songs of 2012, but I have to turn it down whenever it comes on. Even at low volume, the floor toms make my speakers buzz. Brown also did a terrible job producing the Reba Mc Entire and Kelly Clarkson duet version of "Because of You" — everything is LOUD LOUD LOUD but compressed and tinny as can be. I can't even hear Reba on the bridge because the brick wall of instruments covers her up.

And I write for a country music website, so I got an advance copy of Thompson Square's debut album to review. Good album, but DEAR GOD is it loud. My desk vibrated the whole time, and I thought my speakers were going to blow.

"Take It All Out on Me" by Mark Wills is really badly compressed to the point that the bass line sounds more like a synth bass. To be fair, I think this was the first production credit for Brett James.

I haven't noticed any fuzziness on Jason Aldean or Eric Church, two of the hardest rocking singers out there right now. Both of them seem to have decent producers who don't mix everything at full volume, so their songs are loud without sounding brickwalled.

Death Magnetic aside, about the worst experience I've had with the loudness war would have to be Megadeth's 2004 remaster of Rust in Peace. Re-recorded and alternate vocals notwithstanding (you'd think record companies would do a better job at not losing things like vocal tracks), there's just no definition to the sound at all. What used to have tons of impact (the reverse-cymbal fade to the "Polaris" half of "Rust in Peace... Polaris", for instance) has had all the life sucked from it.

A good example of how to do album remasters properly: pick any of Iced Earth's first three albums. Massively-improved sound quality and production (literally the only complaint I have is how the snare drum sounds kinda same-ish across the three albums now), while preserving all the dynamic range.

edited 27th Mar '12 10:08:42 PM by DemonSharkKisame