It's all about compression these days. Most pop music is compressed so much that there is no space in the music. The dynamic range is squashed in favor of bombast and getting it "heard".

Well said. I have been in the industry since '84. I'm 51 and learned very early on to keep abreast of the latest trends and technologies. I started on the maniframe doing COBOL and CICS; was in on the first wave of the move to "PC"'s and OS2/WARP in our company; wrote code in C, C++, VB6, Powerbuilder, REXX; moved on to web development and Perl/CGI, then ASP, javascript, xml, SQL server, and most recently, .Net. I took classes, attended seminars, and made my intentions clear as to where I wanted to be. I also realized that I could learn much from the "youngsters" working alongside me. Keeping my skills sharp has made me immune to the threat of obsolescence. It's all about the attitude.