The honor of the loudest, most compressed album of all time goes to the 1997 remaster of The Stooges’ classic Raw Power. The waveform of each song scrapes the top of the audio spectrum with little variation. For an album that most likely would not be played on popular radio, there would be no real financial or competitive reason to remaster a classic album like this except for a personal preference for superficial loudness. The irony is that The Stooges’ are often credited as being the originators of punk rock. Their original recordings are dramatically dynamic–not loud. The original Fun House recordings offer a perfect example of detailed sound and fury, where every saxophone note and cymbal is discernible from the rest.

Metallica famously produced what may be the loudest, least dynamic album that’s not a reissue in 2008’s Death Magnetic. When heavily criticized for the record's sound quality, the band members insisted that they had meant for it to be that way. They enjoyed the tinny, shrill, and loud recording style, refusing to change a thing.

And most likely that is the case for many of the others. Compression to gain higher perceived volume is the same approach as that of Nigel from Spinal Tap wanting his speakers to “go to 11.” Louder is always better. There isn’t so much a loudness war as a primal affinity for screeching volume.

Historically, that affinity to make music as loud as possible eventually clashes with audience tastes. The volume fads of the ‘20s eventually drew derision from Thomas Edison and others, and it eventually faded away. The Wall of Sound layering technique was incredibly influential to thousands of artists but the flattened sound was not, and that eventually disappeared in future Spector recordings like Ike & Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High. While punk’s loud, fast, and angry aesthetic eventually morphed into metal, hardcore, and post-punk, its recording techniques didn’t always follow with it.

And something similar is happening now in pop music as more songs that aren’t in the vein of screaming punk choruses make their way onto the charts. While not high fidelity, groups like Adele and Mumford & Sons are easing away from the volume ceiling with moments of quiet that are actually, technically, quiet.

Both of them are examples of how the volume fad is largely dictated by aesthetic choice. Soul and folk are two styles of music that actively avoid distortion. The loudness craze hasn’t touched these and other genres that appear on radio or that might seem susceptible to a race for attention: classical, jazz, country, blues. In particular, Norah Jones sells millions of albums while her recording fidelity is considered highly respectable. For these artists, SoundCheck will mean nothing. And it will likely mean little for artists who abuse compression techniques. But it will be an essential tool for listeners offended by the loudness wars. In essence, it is the modern-day gramophone sock.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.