For context, the OP produces jungle and appears to be using 90s-era tracks as their loudness reference…. which explains a lot about where this take is coming from.

The idea that older music was quieter out of "tasteful restraint" is a myth. Vinyl is a physical medium with a hard ceiling,  push the master too far and it causes something called “overmodulation”. It was a technical limitation, not an aesthetic philosophy. The same limitations don’t apply to digital audio. (Not to mention that limiter technology has improved drastically since then.)

And let's not pretend 90s junglists were delicate about levels. They were red-lining mixers and distorting breaks into sawdust. They would have absolutely used modern tools and smashed their masters to smithereens.

To the OP…If you're A/B-ing 90s vinyl rips against modern masters and finding everything "too loud," the issue is almost certainly GAIN MATCHING.  Pull your references down to the same perceived loudness before comparing. That's a fundamental mixing skill and it'll completely change how you evaluate other people's work.

Nobody here deserves to fail because of where they are in their learning. That's the opposite of what this community is for.

TLDR: OP needs to learn how to twist a knob.