Why do mass marketed CD's sound so crappy?


I posted awhile ago here asking opinions regarding the poor sound quality of Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head" CD. Now I want to ask the same question of U2's latest (which is great, btw). I also find Sheryl Crow's CD's to sound underwhelming and dissapointing. Besides that fact that I love her music. What gives? Are the artists clueless? Don't they hear what their releases sound like? Are the record companies deliberately turning out crappy sounding CD's to please the masses that listen primarily on Ipods and walkman's? Man, it makes it real tough to enjoy music I really love to listen to when it sounds so damn bad.

The first track on U2's newest, "Vertigo" really rocks out, but it sounds boomy and muddled. I wanted to turn this up real loud, but it just sounded awful. I'm bummed.
hammergjh
Rockethouse...My point was that there is a way to limit dynamic range without the kind of distortion caused by electronic compression..."Gain riding". For those unfamiliar with the term, this means manual gain control in real time by a recording engineer who is familiar with the music, and knows ahead of time when the loud and soft passages are coming up. He slowly "sneaks" the gain up or down a bit so as to avoid recoding problems. When I made recordings, this was how I did it because I didn't have any fancy recording equipment with compression.
Eldartford, I know where your coming from...I have the simplist of recording set-ups in my house... I still use a Yamaha MT3X 4-Track and I have used this technique for a long time(mostly)for acoustic by putting the 4-track on the floor and using my big toe on the fader (while I play). It took a while but I'm pretty good at it now. Maybe I could start hiring out my big toe as the(latest)next big thing in limiting.
Luckily I can play better than my gags.

Rockethouse...If you used a finger, instead of a toe, your system would be "digital" :-)
Speaking of this, my girlfriend received the latest release from a band called "The Darkness". This disc sounds SO bad it is insane. I'm not just talking about the recording quality either : ) Sean
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