Why Does All Music Sound the Same; An Explanation

@erik_squires , IMO, it applies to a very large percentage of music produced in terms of sales, airplay, downloads.

You're correct that the number of recording artists this applies to is small in the grand scheme.

Many recording artists work in top-class studios with talented engineers and the result is an excellent mix. The product is then sent to the mastering engineer as a digital file. This is where the compression and loudness happens. We're talking about pop music, rock, rap, any mass produced genre headed for airplay.

There are exceptions, of course, where the artist is powerful enough to make the decisions on the post-production of their music. ie, Neil Young.

@n80, yeah The Struts, a breath of fresh air.
I haven't checked their releases on the DR scale, but I'll bet it's highly compressed. Fun music for the car or a party, but I won't be playing them on my system. It still irks me that all releases today are treated this way.

There is an online petition directed at the record labels to stop the Loudness Wars. Good luck with that.
Maybe if more streaming services go hires and start demanding better quality mastering, there may be some sort of change.

+1 Geoff.
The high amount of compression is called brickwalling. The lows are pushed up and and the highs are limited by not allowing any peaks, they are all at the same level.
The result is no range in the bass, no range in the highs. All instruments lose their separation including vocals and all are at the same level, which means the same volume when played.

I agree with Geoff in situations where the record label is calling the shots.

No doubt the actual content of pop music these days is very similar as are the cookie cutter "artists" that perform them.

Agreed. But some of my favorite bands who fall into the alternative or progressive genres are still subject to the same type of high compression mastering.

But the Loudness Wars also applies to classic rock and music recorded in the analogue age. Their re-releases now being sold as "remastered," meaning the recordings have been improved.

Only a small percentage have been improved by digital doctoring.

Very true about target audience, but I’m making the point that the mainstream music biz is in a sad state.

Erik, I listen to 90% classical so this doesn’t affect me for the most part. It’s only when I listen to rock and some remastered jazz which has been compressed that causes me grief.

I was expecting somebody to mention the generation gap in music. "In my day, etc"...lol.
There were always cookie-cutter songs with the same hook played on top 40 radio and the like. The record labels were thriving and all that mattered was to get radio play and have their songs on the Billboard charts, resulting in sales.
Today there are so many outlets for music to be heard. Bands can even produce their own music, play it on the internet/YouTube and create buzz. Record labels are hurting financially and have resulted to tactics whereby to make a song a hit, the same writers and producers are hired to use their formula on multiple artists to sell their product.

Similar to the "old days" where there was also a formula used to produce hit songs, but now the control and manipulation seems tighter before a track is released. Focus groups are even used to decide which will get airplay.

And thanks to the internet and streaming, more music of different genres is available. There is so much variety, we're not stuck listening to the "same sounding music" which is targeted at a certain demographic.

+1 n80