pop/rock music is remastered with more ’loudness’, more compression and a reduced dynamic range. This is to help the music sound comparable with modern production techniques and to sound better in the noisy environment of earbuds and car stereos. Many audiophiles consider this a backward step in sound quality
It is, there is no "quite time" between the loud passages for the brain to breath, it just a wall of relentless sound at the same level. (talk about listeners fatigue)
A classic is Adele’s 21 she’s got a great voice but that album is so compressed I took it back for a refund.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/84804 red is compression, green is no compression.
All compression is good for is the car to over-ride the background road noise, and for ear buds so you don’t blow them up or your ears on the louder dynamic passages. No sounds in life are compressed, why do it to the music we love?
Cheers George