Have you ever heard a pianissimo on the radio? Nope. How can a song build to a rewarding musical climax without crescendo?

As we come to the end of the decade, we turn to one of the more dramatic changes we’ve heard in music over those 10 years: It seems to have gotten louder.We’re talking about compression here, the dynamic compression that’s used a lot in popular music. There’s actually another kind of compression going on today — one that allows us to carry hundreds of songs in our iPods. More on that in a minute.

But first, host Robert Siegel talked to Bob Ludwig, a record mastering engineer. For more than 40 years, he’s been the final ear in the audio chain for albums running from Jimi Hendrix to Radiohead, from Tony Bennett to Kronos Quartet.

Bob pointed to a YouTube video titled The Loudness War. The video uses Paul McCartney’s 1989 song “Figure of Eight” as an example, comparing its original recording with what a modern engineer might do with it.

“It really no longer sounds like a snare drum with a very sharp attack,” Ludwig says. “It sounds more like somebody padding on a piece of leather or something like that,” Ludwig says. He’s referring to the practice of using compressors to squash the music, making the quiet parts louder and the loud parts a little quieter, so it jumps out of your radio or iPod.

Ludwig says the “Loudness War” came to a head last year with the release of Metallica’s album Death Magnetic.

“It came out simultaneously to the fans as [a version on] Guitar Hero and the final CD,” Ludwig says. “And the Guitar Hero doesn’t have all the digital domain compression that the CD had. So the fans were able to hear what it could have been before this compression.”

According to Ludwig, 10,000 or more fans signed an online petition to get the band to remix the record.

“That record is so loud that there is an outfit in Europe called ITU [International Telecommunication Union] that now has standardization measurements for long-term loudness,” he says. “And that Metallica record is one of the loudest records ever produced.”

via The Loudness Wars: Why Music Sounds Worse : NPR.

And the presence of Andrew Bird at #5 on the list tosses stinging salt in my influenza wounds – I had tickets to see Bird when he came to DC recently, but in the end had to sell my tickets because I was sick with H1N1. Ouch.

I can’t fault the selections in terms of quality. I am thoroughly enjoying the music while typing this post. In the end, however, this playlist represents just one dimension of the multi-faceted musical world in which I choose to exist.

So, go ahead, download some of these albums. But find yourself some music from other countries and genres, too.

Regina Spektor (left), Grizzly Bear (top middle), Dirty Projectors (bottom middle), M. Ward (top right), Andrew Bird (bottom right)

Excerpt:

We could tell early on that 2009 was going to be an outstanding year for music. Bands such as Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver and Antony and the Johnsons all released new music, and that was just in January. By the time we posted our online ballot to vote for the year’s best music, we had a dizzying array of albums and artists from which to choose.

Thousands of votes poured in and, just as it is every year, the race was very close. In our mid-year ballot, Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion was the most popular album. But by the end of this year, Grizzly Bear had edged its way to the top, with Animal Collective, Phoenix, Neko Case and Andrew Bird rounding out the top five.

Story: All Songs Considered Listeners Pick The Best Music Of 2009