Thinking about what Treewind said earlier: it really is such a shame that now we have recording technology (24 bit digital)that can really cope with the dynamic range we head into the "loudness wars" compress to death fashion.

Glad to say that MOST folk albums are v careful about compression. In fact with the common ability to manually adjust levels (thereby pull down overly hot phrases or words) I don't really think you need to compress at all.