The Loudness War, or Loudness Race is a phenomenon in the music industry that people try to make their music as loud to be more attractive to the listeners and so to surpass other competitors. This all started when the TV advertising companies found out that the louder the sound of the ad is, the audience are more likely to be hooked. This finding eventually led to the Loudness War in the music scene. The musicians were adding more and more compression to their tracks to make them sound more “appealing” than others and the cost is the dynamic loss and even distortion. By adding too much compression and limiting techniques the transient of music could be broken. What’s more, by long-time listening to this sort of music, listeners could have a hearing fatigue and hurt their ears.
However, not everything about the high loudness of music is negative. For instance, in modern dubstep music, the hard clipping and limiting process make the tracks sound super rough and crispy which is right what this kind of music needs, and as time passed producers are getting more and more familiar with the usage of clipping and compressing therefore they are pushing the music as loud and punchy as they can and not sounding dull. The difference between the songs Battlefields and Airborne which are both under the same producer Zomboy showed the change. In the 2014 track Airborne, there is hardly any dynamic, and every instrument in any second of this song sounds basically at the same volume, also the high-end frequency is quite harsh due to the clipping. While in Battlefields, the bass is better delivered so the whole song is more groovy while it is still loud and punchy at the part where it should be.