The Distortion of Sound

As a technical note, it's not compression, but limiting and compression.  Limiting chops off the dynamic peaks and then compression is used to raise the average signal strength.

The modern loudness wars was the result of iTunes type random order playlists becoming the dominant listening format.  Artists, engineers and record labels did not want their songs to sound softer (less impactful) than the songs that came before or after them on a playlist.  It's not really different than what happened to AM radio in the 1960s, just different technology.  Early Motown was considered highly compressed (loud) for its time and other labels tried to be as loud.

I don't look at a lot of album reviews but if I were to recommend an album or for that matter do a published review I can't imagine not calling the DR Smasher's out - anything less than an 11 just sounds terrible to me. I just don't care how good the material, musicianship, etc is.

If the music companies (Columbia, Sony, etc.) were smart they would issue two different versions of CDs - one for the boom box and iPod generation and one for those that want the dynamics, audiophiles and whoever. The movie companies offer DVD, Blu Ray and violet versions of movies, actually they force you to but all three, why can’t the music industry wise up? I absolutely refuse to buy CDs with numbers like 7, 8 and 9. Give me a break!

Great idea- GK. There are SACD titles for us audiophiles!

SACDs?  Yeah, like I'm going to go buy an SACD player or Blu Ray player so I can listen to audiophile recordings.  Besides SACDs are being compressed too.  Didn't you get the memo? ;-)