The "loudness war" articles pop up on HN every three months or so, and they haven't changed for the last 10 years, always with Death Magnetic references. Howeve

The "loudness war" articles pop up on HN every three months or so, and they haven't changed for the last 10 years, always with Death Magnetic references. However, what have been changing is actual mastering. The primary target now is streaming, and streaming services have started to balance the tracks by their "true" loudness (not getting into technical details here), which pretty mush defeats the purpose of making your track louder than competition. Now, if your track has more dynamic range, it will actually sound better, because the streaming service itself bring other tracks down, and push yours up gently. So, this trend is starting to get reversed - also most mastering engineers and musicians are used to "getting it loud", there are many who're taking advantage of the new reality.