In the late 90s there was a trend for massive over compression of CDs
In order to try to make them louder for radio play. It tended to make everything sound a bit shit.
If you're interested in this sort of thing you should read Perfecting Sound Forever, by Greg Milner. It is surprising interesting for a subject that could easily be very dull.
( tangledupinblue hairy badge with moving eyes, Mon 2 Jul 2012, 10:57, 2 replies, latest was 13 years ago)

It's funny really
Because a CDs got plenty of room on it, there's no actual need to compress the files.

As for whether I'm interested in it, I often wish I'd gone into sound engineering myself.
( Kroney, Mon 2 Jul 2012, 11:02, Reply)

That's nothing to do with comrpession to get it onto the CD
that's the mastering process where everything is compressed so every part of the sound wave is the same "loudness" and it's still going on to this day. It leads to all songs having no dynamic balance.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 2 Jul 2012, 11:06, Reply)

That was roughly what I was about to reply to Kroney above
This picture show the same audio, the top one is compressed, the bottom one is the original file:

( tangledupinblue hairy badge with moving eyes, Mon 2 Jul 2012, 11:11, Reply)

The top one looks like a Gallagher eyebrow

( sporters I’m sincerely gratitude to you, Mon 2 Jul 2012, 11:13, Reply)

The whole of Death Magnetic was slightly over compressed.
Which is annoying.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 2 Jul 2012, 11:14, Reply)