The loudness wars

I always knew that based on the recording and production process, some tracks play louder than others. But I never knew that this was done intentionaly to make a track "stand out" or more noticeable when played back to back with other tracks, such as from a jukebox. And these wars for sound level happened mostly around the time when a particular media format is most popular.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#section_5

Yup, it's mainly pushed by the medium the track will be reproduced on. You don't expect an ambient tune to be squeezed as much as a pop track for example, since people will rarely be blasting that on their car stereos.

Personally I'd rather keep a balance between both, I like dynamics on my stuff.