In this post, I will be focusing on “The Loudness War” Video.  In the video, a track from the late 1980’s is played in it’s original state in volume. Notice that the drums are the loudest part of the song. This is to give it a punch when you listen to it in the speakers. The video editor then compresses the music to make all of the sounds reach the same point of loudness. At this point, it mught sound better, but the video editor lowers the volume. From this you can see the quality of the music is actually not that good at all, and it doesn’t have the same punch or dynamics as the original. Like the rest of the class, I’m asking “Why is this?” . The music, when listened to at a regular volume, does not sound good at all.

Is it possible that our generation have been ingrained with the idea that louder is better? I believe so. The reason why I think that this is an epidemic is because our generation tends to push limits and defy authority. When I was younger, my mom would constantly yell at how loud my music was, and how I would eventually go deaf. For some reason, I always thought the louder your music, the cooler you were. It gave you a sense of power; a thing we are all searching for. I mean, let’s be honest, how bad ass do you feel driving down the road with your favorite song blasting? It’s almost like nothing can stop you. Its kind of like a sense of power that we yearn for.

It’s possibly that the music industry taps into this illusion of power that we have. It’s a way to sell an idea to the public. “If this music is loud, it makes you feel powerful and happy!” And honestly, who wouldn’t want that?