I'm an engineer at a studio, and although I haven't done any big projects yet, I know people who have and the producers paid them very well to make the album sound like shit. Most of the time it's do to overproduction, but in some cases an artist wants to use a $300,000 console and $10,000-$20,000 dollar compressors, pre-amps and effects boxes to make it sound like it was recorded on a $5 fischer-price my first taperecorder. Silly to me.
But the problem is, if you do the whole thing ghetto-style with a cassette 4-track some radio shack mics and a casio keyboard, you're not gonna have a chance on getting playtime on a national radio station unless you have King Midas to master the thing. There are a few that can do it, but most people who master don't really do much and aren't really that good at what they do, but they are given a well-recorded and mixed album, and they just kinda move it through the process.
So I guess there has to be comprimise.
It's like drummers are always telling me "I want my drums to sound like Jon Bonham" and I'm like, "okay, go out and buy a different kit, play remotely like the dude, and I'll hang two mics and we'll see what happens." For real, technology can do a lot, but it has trouble denying itself, it that makes sense to anyone.
thank God for Jon Bonham. Played the fuck out of that big ass kick drum and made it okay to have "hard" beats on mainstream radio. Probably got some white folks to appreciate something new too. He was a beast.