Yes, in fact everything IS louder than before

As I suspected, there has been a growing trend in music production over the past decade or so to increase the compression in mastering, which makes everything sound louder (and less dynamic) than it really should.

Huh?

What it means is... well, take a look at this:

This probably shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but it really is a sad thing, and I wonder if there will ever be a way for this trend to reverse itself. Greater memory capacity & processing power in portable music players? New storage methods or encoding for the future of digital music? Who knows.

Check out this great article from Rolling Stone for more in-depth info about all this and what it may mean for the decline of civilization in general, and excuse me while I go dig out my Steely Dan...