YouTube Audio better than CD Audio? please solve my quandary

I'm facing a dilemma here.

To start off with, I'm not really into much 1980s music at all. I like a few bands from then, which are all metal bands. Most of the pop stuff freaks me out (and always has).

But over the last coupla months, while checking out the work of session guitarists, I stumbled across Laura Branigan. Before I only knew two of her songs, "Glooooooooorrriiiiiiaaaa! GLORIA!" (lol) and that "Hero" song from the movie Short Circuit (I think?)

Anyway, I founds some of her videos on YouTube, in particular the music video to her 1984 song Self Control. I also found an interview that shows part of the song.

Please listen to the video as you read the below paragraph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-t5qbW0k5Q

Now, in this interview video (starts off with some moustached bloke in a flannelette shirt at a circus), first it was badly taped onto VHS (or maybe Betacam, I dunno), and then converted to digital video and then uploaded to YouTube, so I guessed there would be some sound degradation, obviously.

I was amazed by the thickness of the guitar, the really aggressive crunch when the guitarist slammed the chord, that sizzle! And also the thickness of the whole sound, not just the guitar. The drums sound very deep and punch you in the chest (and also very 80s sounding). When Laura's voice came in, it was like it pulsed in and out, like a phaser effect fading in and out. The overall sound of the whole thing, sounded warm and thick, while still of course in relatively bad quality, and sounding VERY 80s..

So, then I got the audio track itself. The recording is in pristine clear high quality, as is the case with a lot of 1980s recordings. Laura's voice (she sings VERY well) rings through perfectly, and drenched in 1980s reverb. The drums are also that typical 1980s tight-gated snare sound (either that or the sploshy "sppppllllaassshhh" of endless reverb which was also typical of the time.

But.......... the punch was gone! That richness in the sound, gone! The video sounded a bit muffled, but had something that the track doesn't. What is it? The guitar is very clear and articulated, but not as thick, and doesn't sound as aggressive as it did in the interview video. The drums are clear, but there's less bottom end on them. It's like with the digital clarity, the richness of the overall sound is gone.

What on earth happened? I don't understand. Did they re-mix the song especially for the video? It's strange, because it the audio track sounds very different to the video.

Please help, thanks.

Just taking a guess, it might be mastered for supreme loudness and minimal dynamics.

so you mean, like compression? they compressed the track for the video so everything would be more present? (even though everything is mixed very well and clear in the track)

bump