The term ‘The Loudness Wars’ refers to the idea that over the years, the standard dynamic range of music has decreased in favour of more compressed mixes and masters that allow for a more consistent volume when listening to music on the radio or on a playlist and that engineers are at ‘war’ for who can make the loudest sounding track. One such engineer is ‘Andrew Scheps’, who claimed that “The loudness war is over because I won” (Griffith, 2023) in reference to his controversial engineering on Metallica’s ‘Death Magnetic’ (2003) album.
This phenomenon is made clear by looking at the remastered versions of songs that were released prior to the ‘loudness wars’ taking over. For example, this image (Kuokka77, 2012) of the waveform for the 1991 version of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ (Nirvana, 1991) looks like this:
Meanwhile, the remastered 2011 waveform looks like this.
As we can see, the original master has a lot more dynamic variation, with the peaks of the drums poking out from the rest of the mix, whereas the 2011 remaster has a much more consistent volume, but how does this translate to the sound?
Were the original master to come on in a playlist, it may sound a little quieter and less energetic, however once turned up the drums would have much more impact and the song would have more movement and rhythmic force. In contrast, if the 2011 version came on, it would sound louder and more energetic off the bat, however some of the movement and feel of the song may be lost in the process.
With this information, it seems clear that maintaining the contrast of volume in the instruments without over-compressing the mix and instead simply turning the volume up when necessary is the superior option, however I believe it is a little more complex as just looking at a waveform doesn’t tell the whole story.
For example, engineers have found ways to account for this problem that wouldn’t necessarily show up in a waveform, such as the creative use of sidechain compression that can maintain the punch of drums by ducking the volume of other elements in the mix at the drum’s peaks. I also believe that there is no inherently better way to do things in music, as each method simply creates a different sound that can achieve a different feeling and if the artistic vision of the artist is to have the instrumental feel more like a compressed wall of noise that maintains high energy without any particular element standing out too much, there is nothing inherently wrong with that and that sound can absolutely work and sound great when used effectively.
That being said, I also believe that the problem lies in the fact that artists that would have otherwise preferred to have a mix that is more dynamic that places emphasis in the emotions elicited from the contrast of volume in each element of the mix are now unable to fully realise that vision in an effort to compete with the market and the way music is listened to in the streaming era. I feel that we should create space for both forms of mixing and mastering to exist and express itself purely through the creative vision of the artists and not the expectations of the industry.
I personally like to maintain more of a dynamic range in my own music than is standard currently, however with an understanding of the industry and the loudness wars, if I were to mix and master a pop record for somebody else I would take a different approach that would match the loudness of most modern songs.
References:
Griffith, D. (2023) ‘Andrew Scheps talks mixing, production and the legacy of Metallica’s Death Magnetic: “My line is that the loudness war is over because I won… and that was the record that did it”‘, MusicRadar, Available at: https://www.musicradar.com/news/andrew-scheps-mixing-metallica-adele-chili-peppers (Accessed: 30th August 2025).
Kuokka77 (2012) Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit – 1991 vs. 2011 (loudness war – gain matched). August 9. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf8DET7ILR4 (Accessed: 30th August 2025).
Metallica (2008)Death Magnetic [CD]. Warner Bros. Records.
Nirvana (1991) ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Nevermind [CD]. DGC Records.
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