This is ridiculous.  I use MP3Gain to make all albums on my iPod the same volume.  This screenshot shows the album analysis of 5 albums I bought last week before normalisation. Of the 79 tracks only 10 have not been clipped.  It's insane and unfair.  We should not be recieving poor quality masters in this day and age.

If you don't know what 'clipping' means, I'll attempt to explain.  There is a limit to how loud sound can be on a CD.  When music is put onto a CD, ideally you want the volume of the song to fit within the limits of the CD volume.  If the loudest part of the song exceeds the limits of CD that information is clipped, gone, thrown out.  What you hear on CD is no longer identical to the original recording.

Another way to think of clipping is when you turn music up very loud with cheap speakers and the speakers max-out — where sound at 90% volume sounds the same as 100% volume.  It sounds flat and distorted.  Now apply this principal to a CD where the music exceeds the allowable volume of the CD.

Record labels, being the marketing wizards they are, think it is a great idea to make music on CD's louder.  I'm not entirely sure why, because radio stations ensure all songs are played at the same volume regardless of how loud they are.  So it will only make a difference at home, where I'm perfectly capable of turning my sound system up if I want to hear something louder.

You'll find that CD's produced in the early days are quieter and don't have any clipping because the limits of CD's were respected.  Arguably the clipping that occurs on current CD's can be damaging to your hearing.