I find all this stuff fascinating.

Generally speaking though, the "loudness war" has calmed down a little bit.

People still routinely master CDs right to the line - to 0.0 decibels, which is pretty damn loud - but that doesn't *necessarily* mean every song has no dynamic range. A producer with any kind of taste could still make a mix with a volume that peaks as loud as all those other chart releases, but which still goes all the way down to a whisper.

The thing about the "loudness war" that is slightly ridiculous is that most chart music doesn't have much dynamic range anyway. A sound engineer friend of mine once told me that it's not just pressure from record companies - a lot of bands he deals with actually want a very over-compressed mix.