The Loudness War: Is It Taking Music to Eleven?

The following is another essay I wrote for my rock history course, on the topic of the "loudness wars" phenomenon of modern music being mixed increasingly loudly.

Waveform of "The Song Remains the Same", by Led Zeppelin (1973)

In 2008, thrash metal pioneer Metallica released their long-awaited album Death Magnetic. Though it was received positively by fans and critics and praised as a return to the roots of the genre Metallica helped invent, the album was also plagued by criticisms surrounding its production. Under attack was the sound quality of the album, which was rife with audible distortion resulting from dynamic range compression—in short, the album was too “loud”. The situation of Death Magnetic is not unique; it is just a highly visible casualty of a war that has been raging in the music industry for decades: the so-called “loudness war”. This race to produce louder and louder recorded music is a troubling trend that threatens the quality of modern music.

Waveform of "Alive", by Pearl Jam (1991)

The urge to produce “loud” music has existed for almost as long as recorded music itself. Back in the days of vinyl, jukeboxes and radio stations would be set to play music as a preset volume. In this environment, a record that had been mastered “hotter” (louder) than the competition had a better chance of standing out and making a psychological impact on listeners. This created pressure to make louder records, though the nature of the medium prevented the music from getting too loud; records that were too loud had less room for music and could cause the needle to jump during playback.[1] In the 1960s and 70s, producer Phil Spector capitalized on the power of perceptually loud music with his “wall of sound” technique which layered the sound of many instruments playing together to produce a powerful, reverberant sound that reproduced well on jukeboxes.[2]

Waveform of "Boll Weevil", by the Presidents of the United States of America (1995)

The introduction of the audio CD and the advent of digital music created a vast new battlefield for the loudness wars. Digital music has a preset, unbreakable limit to the volume of a song; once this limit is reached, the only way to make music “louder” is to amplify the quiet parts of a song via dynamic range compression. As CDs became the standard medium for music, newly developing digital signal processing methods let producers make ever louder music.1

Waveform of "Bullets", by Creed (2001)

In dynamic range compression, the loudest parts of a song—the peaks, such as drum hits—are lowered in volume closer to the level of the rest of the music. The entire song is then amplified to its previous maximum level, resulting in an increase in uniform loudness and a decrease in dynamic range—the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of a song. In the early days of CDs, songs were typically mastered with their highest peaks at about six decibels below the maximum level the medium allowed, with the average level of loudness at around eighteen to twenty decibels below the maximum.1 Today, mixes can average as little as four decibels below the maximum, a huge decrease in dynamic range.[3]

Waveform of "Dimension", by Wolfmother (2005)

A visual example of this trend can be seen in the appendix. A song from the 1970s, while reaching the maximum allowed loudness due to being transferred to CD, nevertheless shows a wide distinction between loud and soft parts, with pronounced drum hits and a wide dynamic range. A song from the early 90s, while slightly louder, still has much of this dynamic range. In the mid 90s, we see evidence of dynamic range compression; while loud parts are still somewhat pronounced, on average the song is much closer to the maximum possible loudness. In the early 21st century, much of the song is quite loud, pushing the digital loudness limit with less distinction between loud/quiet. This becomes even more pronounced in a 2005 song. Then we see the waveform of a song from Death Magnetic, an album that brought the loudness wars to the forefront of music culture; the majority of the song is completely amplified up to the maximum. The waveform of a current pop song shows similar levels of dynamic range compression.

Waveform of "The Day That Never Comes", by Metallica (2008)

The escalation of dynamic range compression has taken a heavy toll on modern music. Removing the loud/soft contrast of music decreases its emotional power and can be fatiguing to listen to; ironically, if a song has no quiet parts, the impact of its loudness is lost. Increasingly, dynamic range compression also causes audible distortion in music as the peaks of sound waves are sheared off to fit into the maximum allowed digital volume. Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios, explains: “The brain is not geared to accept buzzing. The CDs induce a sense of fatigue in the listeners. It becomes psychologically tiring and almost impossible to listen to. This could be the reason why CD sales are in a slump.”[4] Squeezing a song into such a narrow dynamic range reduces the definition of the instruments and makes them harder to distinguish; what was once a loud, crisp drum hit disappears into the mix and its power is lost. Sometimes the pressure to fit all the instruments into one set level of volume can cause their volume to literally oscillate up and down with the beat, causing a very unpleasant listening experience.

Waveform of "Bad Romance", by Lady Gaga (2009)

Not everyone is content to sit back and listen as music becomes increasingly loud and distorted. Some sound engineers actively seek to resist the loudness trend in their work; Joe Lambert of Trutone says, “there’s nothing I do just to make a record louder.”3 Bob Hoffman, who remastered the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Stadium Arcadium for vinyl to provide greater dynamic range, refuses jobs that involve overcompressing music “at least once a week.”1 Others, like Bob Katz, look for ways to increase the perceived loudness of a track while minimizing distortion.1 Turn Me Up! Is a nonprofit organization that certifies music mixed to have a greater dynamic range, encouraging listeners to enjoy it by turning up the volume themselves.[5] An algorithm called Replay Gain analyzes songs and automatically adjusts their playback volume to give listeners a consistent level of loudness, negating the need for techniques like dynamic range compression to make music louder.1 Replay Gain and similar systems are being integrated into popular music players like iTunes and Winamp, though their use is far from universal. But despite the best efforts of sound engineers and other wellwishers, the outcome of the loudness wars depends largely on the listeners. Besides sound quality-conscious listeners like audiophiles, many consumers are content with loud music that they can hear over background noise in cars or on MP3 players. The noisy environments in which so much music is consumed today mean that many listeners are completely unaware of the creeping effects of dynamic range compression or even welcome them. Record companies wouldn’t continue to overcompress music if the average consumer didn’t demand it. Until overproduced, loud music stops being so profitable, we’re unlikely to see an end to the loudness war.

---

[1] Sreedhar, Suhas, “The Future of Music, Part One: Down the Wall of Noise,” IEEE Spectrum, August, 2007, http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-future-of-music.

[2] Spector, Phil, “Phil Spector on MySpace,” MySpace, http://www.myspace.com/philspectorrr.

[3] Jones, Sarah, “The Big Squeeze,” Mix Magazine, December 1, 2005, http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_big_squeeze/.

[4] Sherwin, Adam, “Why music really is getting louder,” Times Online, June 4, 2007, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1878724.ece.

[5] “Who We Are,” Turn Me Up!, http://turnmeup.org/about_us.shtml.

Modern-Day Epics

It has been brought to my attention that apparently I can't share docs with just anyone via Google Docs, they need to log in and stuff. So, I am posting my essay on how epic Painkiller by Judas Priest is, linked to from my post on epic music, here:

Throughout history, people have enjoyed stories as means of understanding the world around them, or escaping to different ones. The culmination of the tradition of storytelling is the epic. Epics are stories on the largest possible scale: tales of great heroes, fierce battles, and larger-than-life adventures. They have been told in the form of poetry (such as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad), literature (as in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings), or film (Ben-Hur). Increasingly, however, the relatively new art form of music has taken up the epic tradition.

One classic example of this is British heavy metal band Judas Priest’s Painkiller, from the 1990 album of the same name. The song begins fairly unusually with a fast-paced drum solo, unaccompanied by any other instrument. Packed with time signature changes and virtuosic precision, the solo establishes from the beginning that this is no ordinary heavy metal song—it’s something bigger, heavier, more powerful. Soon the guitar soars in and the bulk of the song begins. The verses are occupied by generally the same guitar riff—a sixteen-note pattern that seems to switch between three and two-note time, but stays in time with the rapid sixteenth notes of the bass and snare drums, which add a textural speed and urgency to the background of the whole song. Through it all, the instrumentation sounds huge; the heavily amplified and distorted guitar constantly resounds, creating a dense, thundering sonic atmosphere. From the start, the song sounds huge and of great importance.

The vocals follow a similar pattern. The lyrics of the song are about as fantastical and over-the-top as even metal gets, depicting the exceptionally violent and loud salvation of humanity by the godlike metal messiah, Painkiller. The setting is the final stand of mankind against an indescript evil force, certainly a familiar one for epics. The song is packed with superlatives; the Painkiller is described as “faster than a bullet”, “louder than an atom bomb”, and “brighter than a thousand suns”. Priest’s exceptionally talented vocalist Rob Halford considerably adds to the power of the song in his delivery of these lyrics, singing almost entirely in a screeching, yet melodic falsetto. Where other metal songs might use screamed vocals to add special emphasis to certain lines, Halford applies this technique to virtually the whole song. There is no poetic depth to uncover here; the message is clear: This is it. Everything hinges on this avatar of metal; all the chips are down; this is the final battle. Lyrics of lesser songs seem insignificant by comparison.

The intensity and drama never let up as the song unfolds. After a few verses and choruses introducing the dire state of the human race and the Painkiller, we get to a new, bridge-like section. Though the lyrical theme is similar, continuing to describe the fury of the Painkiller, the intensity of the song rises even further as the guitar and bass drum fire away at maximum speed and the last line of the vocals rises from the regular pitch we’ve been hearing to an impossibly high, held note. The guitar and snare drum begin playing, but constantly speed up. Just when we thought the song was beyond anything before it, it keeps becoming more, faster, higher, louder.

The purpose of all this is to build anticipation for the climax: the guitar solo. The increasingly rapid-fire notes of the bridge abruptly give way to incredibly quick guitar shredding. What follows is a solo to end all solos; loud, complex, and at nearly a minute and a half, incredibly long. Several times the main riff of the song is heard repeated in a higher key and with some variations before fading back into the solo. It’s about as over-the-top as metal got, and certainly the focal point of the song; after all, it represents the incredibly loud, powerful, and destructive battle of the Painkiller against the forces of evil.

Immediately after the solo ends, the main guitar riff resumes, along with the vocals. The battle is won; humanity is given hope once more and is free to rebuild from the devastation the Painkiller inadvertently incurred. After this the chorus repeats twice, with different lyrics further describing the metallic awesomeness of the Painkiller, after which we hear the quickening pre-chorus again. Instead of another solo, the guitar plays the main riff alone and in a lower key with occasional drum thrashing interspersed. On top of this is the chorus, but this time it’s sung more normally in an intensifying shout that soon builds back up into Halford’s falsetto screams. Just as they reach their height, we get the expected solo, albeit a much shorter one than before. As the solo fades away, Halford offers a final ultimatum: “Can’t stop the Painkiller,” holding the last syllable for nearly 20 seconds as the drums go wild with a solo that accelerates to seemingly impossible speeds.

All told, Painkiller is an extraordinary heavy metal song that extends the tradition of the epic into the musical realm. The apocalyptic story its lyrics tell lives up to the epics of old in scale, power, and weight, making even Priest’s other lyrics seem inconsequential by comparison. The bombastic guitars and bass-heavy drumming, blisteringly fast and virtuosic in musicianship, are similarly beyond that heard in other songs, even other metal songs. Everything is beyond the impossible; an impossibly long solo, impossibly fast drumming, Rob Halford’s impossible vocal skills. All of these elements and more would soon be adopted by power metal, a whole genre arguably devoted to the epic tradition in one way or another, but Painkiller is one of the songs that would define this sound. Film and literature continue to have their moments, but today music has become a consistent teller of epics.