Can CD's be loud and ok?

Thanks to everybody for answering.
I'm finding this interesting-is it possible to fully know extents of this technique?
Obviously I state The Jayhawks case which I would guess is extreme with it's distortion.
But do the more perceptive listeners (and I do believe that is a talent)every hear a recording that confuses them?
I'll also be interested to hear comments on particular releases the likes of the last records by Norah Jones,Beck,Radiohead,Peter Gabriel or indeed any record that Audiogoners might use to state for their argument.

Have you listened to any of the Patricia Barber sacd's Ben? Dynamic range, black background and plenty loud in my book, a true SOTA recording that does answer your question.

A recent interview with Pat Barber's engineer, Jim Anderson, had him quite proud of the way that he rides the gain of the vocal mike by hand. This is just manually compressing the sound rather than letting machines do it.

And proud he should be, now if we could just get him to compress some more of the music for us, he's got the touch!

Sogood-no I haven't but I don't particularly care for the limited amount of P.Barbers work I've heard.
Thanks for the tip-I tend to find the majority of recordings I buy aren't that bad but I don't claim great ability to detect compression.
I am certainly very clear in my own mind on recordings that are plain bad (for whatever reason)and productions I don't like-which is part of the artistic whole to me.
I'm really trying to understand where people are coming from and I can see their genuine concern and dislike for overcooked or compressed productions.
However part of me can't help thinking it's part of the "average" Audiophile's make-up to end up analysing that aspect but also to be led to the likes of say Santana or U2 where the mainstream meets their tastes and perhaps that is part of the problem and frankly artists who are pretty concerned with being (extremely) popular despite their heritage-thus perhaps "pressure" to compress the sound for universal acceptance on lower end kit.
Maybe not.
I'll state a list of recent recordings (not all totally perfect I grant you)but a reflection of music that is not absolutely far out but to my ears shows that the artists and producers are very concerned how the disc sounds.
Radiohead,Blur,Beck,Wilco,Springsteen,Steely Dan,Bowie,Zwan,David Sylvian and then onwards onto lesser known bands......
I look forward to your comments.....