The Loudness War
A friend showed me this video a while back. It illustrates and provides a good example for something happening on a larger scale, something referred to as The Loudness War. And now a quote from the glorious wikipedia:
The phrase loudness war (or loudness race) refers to the music industry’s tendency to record, produce and broadcast music at progressively increasing levels of loudness each year to create a sound that stands out from others and the previous year.