I hear alot of mixes being slammed, and it definetely bugs me. But this is a trend, often propagated by the labels or artists themselves, to make the mixes sound louder at any expense in order to compete with other songs on the radio. I've heard alot of digital clipping on records, and the waveform looks like a continuous block, not the "heart monitor waveform" that regular records are like. I've seen masters that the vu lights literally do not move from the 0 dB mark. I think that there's always those that realize that they'd rather go for something lower in volume that "breathes", rather than end up with something that is mastered louder, but not as dynamically pleasing.
A friend had recorded a band on their label, and I said that I could master it for them. They gave me the master mix on cd, and it was already maxed out to 0 db. I tried a couple of songs, and it was already clipping and maxed out, and it was frustrating. There was nothing I could do with it, and I told them this, that i'd be wasting my time, so I didn't do it. If anything, i'd have to reduce the levels, to add a bit of overall EQ that was missing from the mixes. I also told them that they'd be wasting their money if they got it mastered, seeing as the compression/ limiting/ 0 dB maximization was already done in the mixes, so what do they do? Send it out to Toronto to get a guy to master it for a grand! I mean, people don't listen when you tell them the truth. All he did was add a bit of 15-20 kHz sparkle, and that was it.
Ugghh.