That's a real thing, to be sure. The Loudness Wars have completely ruined any number of otherwise decent recordings. The worst I ever heard was Dropkick Murphys's "The Meanest of Times" which had the dynamic range of an air conditioner in Phoenix.
Still, you can always take a great analog recording, pipe it into a good ADC, and listen to that sample forever without degradation. I think almost everything can play FLACs now.
Metallica's Death Magnetic was another truly dreadful example of the loudness war - Thankfully a better mastered release came out in 2015. I've just got my hands on this release and comparing it against my original copy it is a night and day improvement - especially on "All Nightmare Long".
Still, you can always take a great analog recording, pipe it into a good ADC, and listen to that sample forever without degradation. I think almost everything can play FLACs now.