Thanks lowrider, great article.
In the context of contemporary pop music as heard on large radio stations, I would say yes, it does all sound the same.
I saw an article about that hit pop song "Meet Me In The Middle". It indicated that it had a whole team of writers and was written from the ground up to be a radio hit with demographics and stats being primary criteria.
I don't have any problem with this per se. I don't have to listen to that sort of pablum or that sort of radio station. (A pop station plays in one area of my workplace and in an 8 hour workday you can hear the same song as much as 5 times).
Where I do have a problem is when this sort of production/engineering carries over to where it does not belong. I think about bands that are serious musicians making high quality music outside of the mainstream who still produce loud highly compressed DR CDs.
Alabama Shakes, Gary Clark, Jr and Tedeschi Trucks come to mind. Really talented, serious, thoughtful musicians. Heck, Tedeschi Trucks have their own studio and their CDs still show significant DR compression compared to hallmark production quality artists like Steely Dan and Mark Knopfler.
I don't know what the answer is. I just hope that serious musicians will seek to stand out not just on the quality and craft of their art but also in the production quality. None of the artists I mentioned above are ever going to see significant radio air time. And I don't get the impression that it costs any more to show discretion with the loudness settings. I'm assuming that issue is driven by executives or new/young/lazy engineers.
