On Wednesday, January 24, our HIST 390 class discussed the Loudness War and the concept of compression within the music industry.  The Loudness War was, from what I can gather, originally an innocent enough marketing ploy that came about alongside the new advances of technology at the time (more specifically, disc technology).  It was an attempt to have songs differentiate themselves from the competition and, as the practice has continued throughout the years, more and more critics of such practices have come out of the woodwork and voiced their concerns about it.  This is where the concept of compression comes along.  In songs, there are highs and lows.  Loud parts and quiet parts.  In songs before the Loudness War and due to the limited technology at the time, one could easily hear the highs and lows of a song whether they be the loudness and quietness of the instruments or the high and low notes that a singer would sing.  Compression is when the song’s audio is edited to become louder overall, thereby closing the gap between the lower and higher (quieter and louder) parts of the song.  It was initially believed that the louder the song, the better, but if you wished to play the song at a lower volume, then one would notice that the songs, in their entirety, sound more compressed.  By making the bridge between quieter and louder parts of the song shorter, compression sadly eliminates whatever little distinction those parts had, leading to a noticeably blander listening experience.  There needs to be “quiet” in order for there to be “loud” after all.  As a result of this practice, songs having been released recently have noticeably gotten blander and softer, despite the potential the singer or the instruments involved in the song can have otherwise.

Throughout the class, one of the questions posed to us, the students, was, “Why does it seem that our generation seems to like, prefer, or seem to be okay with, these kinds of compressed songs?”  Some theories ranged from simply being born, grown up, and raised in a generation of compression, and thus, the listeners of the current generation could not properly realize that they were being duped into a less cultured and less enjoyable musical experience.  We’ve essentially been tricked into liking something that did not truly deserve to be liked in the first place.  Another theory thrown around was that the current musical attitudes of those of this generation have changed; that now, no one has the time to truly experience the music that they listen to and so music has simply evolved with the times and has become thoughtless background music or music that we were not meant to listen or think too hard about.  The follow up question to this theory was then, “So you want your music to be thoughtless?”  This led to a theory that the professor posed himself, it being that, due to a decaying artistic culture, compressed music has become the new normal, and that those who live during this age of cultural artistry are being exposed to a lesser form of what it can truly be.

In the end, I have my own theory about why compressed music has become the preferred norm, which takes some inspiration and a few pointers from the decaying culture one.  I believe that it has something to do with the change in culture (and perhaps it is due to the decaying of it), but I feel that the part of our current culture that also deserves some of the blame is the current generation’s attitude of inclusiveness.  Deep down, we are all social creatures.  We want to be involved in things.  We don’t want to be the one signaled out or left out of something even if we kind of deserve to.  Let’s be honest, it never feels good to NOT make the cut for a sports team or NOT to be invited to a party or event with the rest of your friends, no matter how justified they are when they say that you’re just not that good at the sport and you’ll only bring the team down or that there was a limited number of invites allowed and you just happened to barely make the cut or that the rest who were invited barely know you anyway.  Those are all perfectly reasonable reasons, but they still hurt regardless.  This is where the music industry comes in.  They know about this feeling.  They know how bad it feels to be left out or kept out of something, so their response was to make songs more inclusive and accessible.  Musical compression shortens the gap between the quiet and loud parts, therefore creating a blander song… but also a more easily accessible song.  Back in the day, being a singer required a lot of skill.  With the limited technology they had, the singers had to have amazing, God-given voices and vocal cords and their songs showed such talents and gifts off, milking them for all that they were worth.  That being said, unless you wanted to be made fun of by your friends or didn’t care enough to be made fun of, chances were that it required a fair bit of talent for anyone else to sing them.  It was hard for anyone to “rock out” when the band or singer you were imitating or rocking out to was just so good at it and you so weren’t by comparison.  There was a reason why these singers were signed and became famous.  They had the talent and pipes to justify it.  It was a individualistic meritocracy back then.  Nowadays, however, with the birth of social media and social justice advocate groups, today’s culture is more about the feelings of the group.  Social justice advocates are constantly fighting for the rights of those that they believe have been mistreated and fight for the law and society to include these groups into their circle of privilege and whenever a somewhat important hashtag on sites like Twitter or Facebook pop up, people who believe in it immediately jump on board to show their support, the horrific downside to all of this being that if you do not support them then, if that group is aggressive and passionate enough, they will band together to confront you on why you don’t.  Today’s culture seems to be dominated on the belief that everyone needs to be happy, and if everyone isn’t, then something must be wrong about it.

Now, how does music compression come into this?  Well, simply put, the music industry realizes this and therefore use compression to make songs more accessible to the masses with it.  Think of any song from this generation.  The song is basically one dull and bland straight line in terms of loudness until it rises just a bit at the chorus before going back down to its original blandness in the second verse and then getting a bit louder again at the chorus.  Due to compression, the loudness of the chorus is no longer that high compared to the loudness of the regular verses… thereby making the song, as a whole, much more easy and accessible to sing along with.  Take Rachel Platten’s, “Fight Song” for example.  Chances are no one except those who truly love the song really know or care what the song is saying throughout its verses, and Platten sings the verses with just as much enthusiasm, with the same height of loudness with little to no change throughout.  It’s then when the song gets to the chorus that the song’s loudness goes up.  It’s not much, but it’s enough that it’s not too complicated for anyone to sing along with it when hearing it on the radio or live.  It’s the punch that anyone can feel hyped up to sing along to, especially when there are friends who enjoy the same song as you or if you are in a crowd at a concert where that song is being played.  It’s the part where the singer can simply shout, “Your turn!” before letting the crowd sing it in unison, be a part of something bigger than themselves, and give themselves a round of applause when it is all done.  Listen to “Fight Song” and really listen to the chorus.  You just want to sing out loud with it when it happens, despite it not being that much louder than the verses or other lyrics.  And you can, because the loudness has been compressed to the point that now anyone with even a modicum of musical know how can sing along with it.  The chorus is easy to jump into.  It’s easy for anyone, no matter how musically challenged they are, to jump into.  The other verses don’t really matter.  It’s the chorus that does and that’s enough to keep you coming back for more.  That’s why our generation likes these types of compressed songs so much.  It’s fast food.  Easily accessible, everyone knows about it, they acknowledge that it’s not THAT good, but the small amount of good that it does have has enough to bring you back for more.  Because we can easily be a part of it whenever we want to.  Because we know when the “beat drops”.  Because other people know when to jump into it too.  Because anyone, no matter how average their voices are, can sing along to it.  Because we can all jump into it and feel like we’re a part of something.