The loudness war is such a conflicting issue for me as a music listener.  The elitist, hipster inside believes the loudness war is detrimental to music, but the average modern listener inside believes the loudness war is perfectly fine.  On one hand, the loudness war takes all dynamics out of music.  When a song starts off with a slow, quiet piano and progresses into this large, loud piece of music, on a modern record, the quiet piano will actually be just about as loud as the large body of music that was the product at the end of the song.  Years ago, a piece that started off quiet would actually be quieter than the loudest parts of the song.  Dynamics were much more involved and necessary to create music back in the early and mid 1900’s than they are now.  Today, people want loud, in your face, bumping music.  Music is much more dedicated to the casual listener who wants to party or have some kind of noise on in the background of doing homework or chores around the house.  Music of today has no dynamics and because of that people are able to casually listen to music rather than focus intently on it.  Music from the 1900’s needed intent listening to hear all the instruments being played and the intricacies of each song.  Overall I do not think this is something that is bad for music.  Each style, dynamics or no dynamics, fit the time of that era.  Years ago, dynamics in music was necessary and expected.  Today, people do not want that and we have moved on from dynamics to casual listening.  Casual listening fits the times and it seems that it is the best thing for society today.