The Downward Spiral

Honestly no review is needed. This album fu*k so hard it, Hurts. Perfection. Life changing, game changing. Extremely important in my life.

Kc bbq masterpiece

Wow I have listened to NiN but never a full album. I feel like I just listened to Trent bare his soul. That was fucking beautiful.

I’m very familiar with it . It’s a classic

Raw and dark, helped me through some really dark times

Such an intense album. I wouldn’t say I like the main character of the album, but the story of his descent is interesting and the music is incredible.

Down

One note, and a very subjective five stars (but what is this list for if not being subjective). An overlong opus of knotty, crashy noises and the sort of lyrics that would be trite if not situated in the dense and layered industrial world that Reznor builds. An utterly absorbing listen that feels exciting. And of course, ending on Hurt; for me vastly superior to any cover, loops teasing themselves in the background over increasingly tortured vocals. They rise, our single singer overtaken by the machines, melodies collapsing into metal on metal, noise, machinery. Shivers.

damn good stuff

desert island disc from day 1

Such a classic for a reason

It's hard not to think that NIN was the catalyst for the success that Industrial Music found in the mainstream. The fact that the next few years after this album came out. The fact that bands like Marilyn Manson, Ramstein, and Static-X found a home on MTV for any small amount of time might be because of the astounding The Downward Spiral is as an album. Reznor really sets up themes and sounds he would explore for the next decade or so in this album, and produced some amazing songs that can stand alone, but shine more brightly when listened to in situ on the album as a whole. Truly an album that belongs in any Heavy Music enthusiast' collection.

The Downward Spiral is a testament to storytelling and one of the all-time greatest narrative concept albums ever made. It's almost impossible for me to listen to any one song at a time, and I ALWAYS need to carve out an hour for the full runtime of the album.

Full of anger and depression, at times incredibly abrasive and at times soft and melodic. It's not something I want to listen to all the time but it's fantastic at what it does. One thing I noticed listening through this time is that every song has a different but interesting rhythm. March of the Pigs, Closer and Hurt are all 10/10.

Cool listen. Different

This would have ruined my life 3 years ago

Wow. I've loved this album a long time, but an even more focused listen has me just saying... wow.

Intense :)

This is it. This is the album. This is the album that I had to hide from my parents. This is the album that was released at just the right time in our angst-ridden teenage years. This is the album where every listen was a cathartic release of that bottled up angst. This is the album that I heard on tour and learned how intense and exciting a live show can be. The noise, the sweat, the lights, the energy. This is the album that absolutely destroys from start to finish. The dynamics change so much from song to song...some big and loud, some barely audible, yet every song is powerful. One low spot for me is Closer, and that's only because it got overplayed so so so hard. There might be a couple other things that could get picked apart a little bit, but I don't see the point. Maybe it's not THE album that changed how I feel about music. I'm not sure there is one single album that can claim that title. But this is definitely on the very short list of those that truly got me excited to hear more, see more, and feel more music. Jesus, this album. I'll bet it would be difficult to be Trent Reznor for a week in 1994.

This still rules. I haven't listened to it from start to finish in ages, and I'd forgotten just how dark it is. Trent Reznor was going through some shit, and this is an unflinching document of that time. This feels like when he really settled on NIN's sound, and I love all the elements he uses to assemble it.

Trent helped popularize Industrial for the masses, and this was his greatest album that was dropped the perfect time.

Inscrutable

Trent Reznor brings us all Closer to God. Abrasive, spiteful, precocious, furious, nihilistic, political, libidinal, provocative and desperate - there's not much you can really say about one of this album that hasn't already been said in the last three decades. The industrial, noisy, experimental, and LOUD sound makes it a difficult listen on the first spin (as it did for me as a teen, years before the return) but it's a "turn-the-volume-up" classic for a reason. The sound also holds up impressively well for something of its age: for better or for worse many of its contemporaries in the industrial/electronic space have this old-school vintage feeling to it. The Downward Spiral, on the other hand, sounds like the kind of album that could have come out yesterday. That said, the album is very much in the thematic line of that post-ironic post-modern 90s thing that you could only really capture in the last decade of the 20th century. It's pretty cheesy these days to over-mythologize it, but you can taste the same furious spirits on the wind of Cultural America that Cobain was struggling with. It's no surprise them that he took his own life a month after this dropped. NIN is in many ways the American cousin to Radiohead: where Yorke and crew tackle the pre-milennial angst of the new era and the hauntological spectres of the new-old with the cold bent of the British psyche, Reznor violently rebels. Listening to it again now I can hear the nervous, darkly comedic, coming-to-self-awareness hiding behind the brash overconfident lyricism that I missed back when I was 20 and drowning in Lynx Africa and angst. Beneath the fear and loathing is Reznor as a deeply troubled, vulnerable character. You kind of have to peel back a lot of layers of edge to see that though, methinks. Listening on it again I reckon the pull-back to nothing but the piano at the end of Closer - going from this everything-against-the-wall tsunami of harsh noise immediately into a somber, deliberate, contemplation over a few echo-y orphaned notes - is probably my favourite track end in music history. A top 5 album of all time for me and on re-listen that hasn't changed. The razorblade edgy angst of that part of my life has gone now, but I keep the fondness for that devil-may-care flipping-the-bird attitude. fav tracks: [the whole thing], Closer, Piggy, Hurt

I only ever heard a handful of songs NIN before listening to this LP and was darkly surprised after this first listen. This album is genius cutting edge at it's release time and the song Hurt was a big hit for Johnny Cash the "man in black." Will add it to my play list.

So great. Perhaps only one mediocre song on the album.

this album is so sexy

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but it would still work even if it wasn’t a concept album. It’s odd to say that these songs, as brutal and dark as they are, were an enjoyable listening experience. But I liked the album just as much today as I did when I first heard it over thirty years ago. One of the best of the nineties and on my Top 100.

Вот уж реально... Послушать и умереть.

This was a really good album, it opened strong and ended strong but a couple songs in the middle missed me. Regardless it was definitely deserving of 5 stars and if all the songs hit as good as the best ones it definitely would've been even higher in my personal ratings. 3/5

This is going to be a long one because I love this album so much for many different reasons. This is the album that introduced me to the concept of pre and post music production. Before this they were just names on a list that I assumed were for marketing or grifting purposes. For being made in 1994 the techniques and creativity on this album are so far ahead of their time. The technology available for mixing, creating and tuning every sound on this album was so far behind what we have now and yet it sounds better than things put out today. The entire soundscape of this album revolutionized what the words "grit", "raw", and "dark" mean with respect to music. Trent and Flood were, and remain, geniuses in this respect. Beyond the heavy and deconstructed guitars, drums, bass, synths, etc, this album is full of metallic and factory-like sounds that really drive the point home and create a proper "industrial" aesthetic. “Reiner” by itself is like a phd thesis in editing techniques. I’ll never forget how I thought that my headphones were broke. When the chorus only came in through what felt like the bottom left part of my ear. The horn stabs somehow don’t seem out of place and it all culminates in this extremely quiet voice that’s about to explode with everything else going on. Trent's voice is always between proper singing and yelling but never really either one. The lyrical content of this album isn't for everyone. I'm not saying it's the most profoundly presented thing, or even that some of it isn't cringey as an adult. If we ignore the embarrassment that our society has put on expressing anger and depression against religion, sex, identity, and so forth (I realize that's a big ask), then this album captures exactly what it is to fall down an ever more difficult existence of depression and fear. The album starts as the initial reaction to your life falling apart - being absolutely incensed and having an increasingly delusional view of having power over everything. We have the moments of false clarity (March of the Pigs - doesn't it make you feel better?) and projection on others (Heresy). Then we move on to desperation and the grab for self change that isn't coming (Closer, The Becoming). Another burst of violence and anger as the realization that none of this is working (Big Man, I Do Not Want This), a plea for someone else to end it (Eraser), an attempt to blame someone else (Reptile) for not doing it, then ending with the absolutely soul crushing final two tracks as the narrator gives in to it and simply falls apart. It's as a whole that the title of the album becomes clear and the concept comes in to itself. It takes on an entirely different meaning as a young person than it does as an adult, and maybe some people are lucky enough to never experience any of this as they get older, so maybe it just makes them embarrassed about things they thought in their youth. It's so much more than just angst though. I don't know where to begin with the actual songs. Every one is thematically perfect with the lyrics/lack of lyrics (or is it the other way around?) and they tread a line between industrial, metal, and rock like nothing else. I'm not even sure any of these songs hit the headbanging and more conventional heights of singles like Head Like a Hole or Wish or any number of songs from other NIN albums but there are parts that do and they're all over the album. The rest of it is really like nothing else at the time. Reznor took all of the existing industrial music of the time and transformed it in to something that is just beyond rhythmically beating a piece of iron in a german warehouse and being pissed off about it (which, to be fair, I also enjoy). The variety of styles in here that remain true to the theme of self destruction and deprecation is huge. It gets better with age, and it started out stellar in 1994. A complete masterpiece. I would give a 7 out of 5.

Classic, groundbreaking, and most importantly worthy of this list. Organized noise that is much better than the sum of its parts. Still heart thumping 30 years later.

Tellement représentatif de ma période fin secondaire / Cégep. Closer devait jouer 2-3 fois à chaque soirée de bar, peu importe le bar (de mon schtyle) où tu allais. J'adore Heresy.

J'ai de la misère avec le hardcore industriel dans le sens que je vois pas vraiment de moment d'écoute approprié. Trent Reznor est définitivement talentueux et je me surprend à trouver certains trucs assez groovy. March of the Pigs me fait penser à The Ledge de Fleetwood Mac (sur les amphets). J'aime l'emploi des sonorités/timbres non conventionnels de l'industriel. Mais vous allez pas me trouver souvent à écouter du Marilyn Manson pour le fun. Finalement, 2e écoute, j'ai absolument trippé, j'en ai mis pendant la période de jeu de Paul et il a aussi vraiment aimé (pas trop longtemps quand même je pense ça le fait entrer en trance). A la fin du chorus de Closer il y a quelque chose qui ressemble drolement à l'air de Packt Like Sardines!

Même pas besoin de le réécouter

Top 100 OAT, 10 of the 90s. Makes me want to kill myself but in a freaky way

Once I was in the car with my parents and “Closer” came on. My mom and I simultaneously went “oh great song! Turn it off” then had to explain why we didn’t want to listen to it with each other to my dad, who got angry at the lyrics. I miss being 27. All the synths are unique and the production is some of the most rewarding stuff I've ever heard. Every few songs there's a bass guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, or non-fuzzed out guitar that adds a weird human touch that makes the rest of it more powerful.

I first found out about Nine Inch Nails in 1996, when Weird Al used “Closer” in the polka medley on his album Bad Hair Day. From there though, Nine Inch Nails only existed in this otherworldly mystique. The kids who wore their shirts to school were often labeled the goth or headbangers, and they were the type of kids we were warned about in Wednesday night youth group at church. I had no idea what their music sounded like, I just knew that they had a song that said “I want to fuck you like an animal,” and to admit that I knew the existence of that song would generate a barrage of questions from my parents, none of which I wanted to answer. As an adult though, the closest I’ve ever gotten to listening to Nine Inch Nails is watching movies where the score was composed by Trent Reznor. However, I think I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this album. I don’t think it’s really going to be up my alley, but I imagine I’ll at least appreciate it for its significance and impact. It took a few songs for this album to get going for me, but once I got sucked in to the sound of The Downward Spiral, I found myself really absorbed by the music. Heading into this album, I thought that a lot of it would wind up sounding the same, but there was a lot of variation over the course of this album, but everything was held together really well by the dense atmosphere. I had no idea that Trent Reznor did almost everything on this album, which is really impressive on such a rich album. I guess that’s why this came out five years after Pretty Hate Machine. I really enjoyed that despite being heavy and rough, this album had plenty of beautiful melodies throughout. This album is really a great showcase of Trent Reznor’s talent as a musician, songwriter, and instrumentalist. “Heresy” wound up being my favorite song on the album, barely beating out “Closer.” The pulsing bass sound underneath the main sound really kicked ass. The drumming and guitar were excellent too. As for “Closer,” it’s such an excellent journey in industrial rock. The overall melody is excellent, but what seals it for me is that last two minutes, and I loved hearing that melody pop up again on the title track. “March of the Pigs” was really great too. The programming and piano were exceptionally noteworthy. And speaking of industrial music, I loved the drums on “Piggy,” mostly because they reminded me of Neubauten. As for other songs on the album that I really enjoyed, I thought “Becoming,” “A Warm Place,” and “Hurt” were all exceptional as well. I was thinking about giving this album four stars, but as I typed out my review, I think The Downward Spiral is worthy of five stars. A dark journey into the depths of what rock music can be, this album was incredibly enjoyable, and very well made.

Impressive how this work does not age. Still raw and depressing.

When I got this album I was fully expecting it to be a dud, not because I dislike this music, in fact this was one of my favorite albums in High School, or because it's no longer my kinda thing, it still very much is, but mainly the fact that over time as I've listened to more music and dissected it, it also made me have more "stringent" or just being tougher on the music I listen to, not because I think being more mean is fun but it's a better way to distinguish the music that's still relevant to me vs the one that isn't. For some time now I've been dreading coming back to NIN like I have with every album I had listened to in the past and enjoyed when I was younger because more often than not I wind up having more problems with the albums than I do things I still enjoy, and it sucks so much but it's the nature of being more in tune with what and how I enjoy the music I'm listening to. So with all of that it makes me happy that by the time I was halfway thru this album I was confident I wasn't changing my opinion about it, i.e that it's fantastic, one of the best albums of its era and perhaps its genre. Now I do like some aspects about it less than I did before, mainly the lyrics in that they aren't *bad* but if one thing is true about Trent is that he isn't a great lyricist, especially at this time, he is very clumsy in how he tries to wrap his message and intended emotions around certain words which leads to moments like hearing Heresy's very obvious anti religious lyrics delivered mostly well with the implication and metaphor but it's not the most detailed picture, and it only gets worse when the chorus kicks in like "GOD IS DEADDD AND NO ONE CARESSSS" it's hammy as fuck and hilariously edgy, yet it weirdly works if only because the song is that good. Every song has that aspect of the lyrics being clumsy but it works in its honesty, this whole album is a long narrative about an addict's Downward Spiral (if you will) and it's obviously partly autobiographical about what Trent was going through at the time, which I think helps making a song like Hurt be as effective as it is, the images and the narrative aren't the most complex but you can feel every emotion behind a lyric like "what have I become?/my sweetest friend/everyone I know/goes away in the end". And while the lyrics or I guess the way Trent likes to deliver things might be hamfisted, the one thing that absolutely shines in this album is the production and general writing, how is it that after 30 years this album still sounds cutting edge, so many of the weird techniques in this album for producing guitars, use of multiple channels and panning, the sampling, the noise the everything has so much intention and ingenuity that it's hard not to enjoy, a song like Ruiner still confuses me because how is a song that has a bouncy, distorted hip hop beat works so well with these incomprehensibly layered sounds while every chorus is so slow?? I don't know but it sounds so good somehow and the only explanation I have is because Trent knows how to make music sound and feel exactly the way he wants, and that much has remained timeless about this album. Sure, it's edginess hasn't aged that well and I don't care for it much anymore, but everything else remains as good as I remember.

This is a big and complex album. Reznor was breaking new ground everywhere - without his touch Marylin Manson would just be a creepy dude who's ego far outstrips his talent. Innovative use of synths and samples in such a heavy sounding album.

Industrial Rock Innovators

Legend of Industrial/metal music. Thjs waa the first album by them I listened to.

I haven't listened to the full album but I have to say most of the music is pretty good. Also the part 3 minutes in where the guitar is drunk and having a stroke is hilarious.

Doesn’t it make you fell better.

it's sort of a shame he eventually got a girlfriend

Jesus Christ, Trent Reznor is one fucked up dude.

I have always loved this album. It sets a mood—and commits to it. My favorite tracks are probably “Heresy” and “Hurt,” but the album commands your attention from start to finish. *Maybe* the album could’ve, or should’ve, been 10 minutes shorter? But if that’s a flaw, it’s a minor one.

Heavy, abrasive, fuzzy and moody music which serves its purpose and no doubt helped a great number of young people in their formulative years. There's some fantastic indie-rock on display if you're in the right frame of mind.

This album came at the right time for me as an adolescent starting to unpick a catholic upbringing someone screaming "god is dead" was kinda refreshing, much to my late mothers absolute horror. But besides all that this is a great album altough very miserable and a bit gross in parts 'I wanna fuck you like an animal' it is also considered, suprisingly delicate and ephemeral in parts. Trent manages to create an album of emotional and textural complexity the likes of which i don't think he ever managed again. The incredible hurt which obtained more exposure through Johnny cash is the epitemy of the album, an angry, wild song but considered and vunerable just like all of us.

The existential pain and angst of being teenage in the nineties. Good times, good times... I enjoyed the driving bass and the overwhelming noise of it.

Never listened to industrial music much, but i was surprised how good this sounds. I like the distorted rock music and also the electronic influences really fit good in it. Also the music embraces the overall theme of the album, as in some songs the music does tell parts of the story. The topic of the album is quite brutal and depressing. Reading the wiki first helped me here to understand, that all this part of the concept. Some songs like "Big Man With A Gun" are quite disturbing. That it then ends with the og version of "Hurt" is the cherry on the top. I wanted to give 4 out of 5 stars first, but after thinking a bit longer about it, i am going to give it the full 5 star rating. Very well thought out album!

In spite of the depressing subject matter (or maybe because of it?), this is a truly gorgeous album. I love the whiplash from hard industrial rock to techno to soft instrumental. Great range, incredible soundscapes. I'm so glad that Trent Reznor did not give in to his suicidal ideations, because he continues to give us beautiful music to this day with his stunning soundtrack career.

You know you're looking at a cultural landmark when most of the 1-star reviews for something are about its influence on the cultural decline. One reviewer, misguidedly quoting (failed hyper-conservative US Supreme Court nominee) Robert Bork, holds this album up as an example of the postmodern attitudes that led us to no longer build cathedrals. They also go on to suggest that, to choose the one religion of many that must be true, one should look to the one they hate. The weird turnabout is that there are only two kinds of people who frequently talk about postmodernism: academic cultural critics and Christian conservatives. I guess evangelicals think postmodernism is true. Know that this album is getting review-bombed by a bunch of cranky, fundamentalist church-goers who give it 1-star reviews because their pastor said so and they're incapable of empathy. The album is about a person in a self-destructive downward spiral. NIN's Trent Reznor has always said that this is not someone to be emulated. That's never stopped troubled people from identifying with TDS's protagonist, just as people emulate Patrick Bateman (of American Psycho) -- neither are intended as role models. Our ability to choose role models, however, is something entirely up to us and, just as someone might misguidedly see Robert Bork as possessing useful insights into culture, some might see The Downward Spiral's protagonist as a symbol of their own turmoil -- actually, I think it's more relatable for a depressed person to identify with an album about depression. Industrial music isn't always an easy listen. Its textures and rhythms can be by turns aggressive, abrasive and difficult to parse. The intent is to push away pearl-clutchers and draw some listeners closer -- those that smell a funky cheese and want to sample it to understand the appeal might understand the reflex involved. Close listening reveals a multi-layered production, dense with highly technical playing and production. The widely-cited dark atmosphere of the record is present but, for anyone who's stuck with 1001 Albums long enough to hit Napalm Death, is actually tempered quite a lot compared to hardcore industrial. This is kind of like making a challenging but enjoyable cocktail from Malort (try a Hard Sell or a Bitter End). Reznor's depiction of the angst and internal conflict that a lot of young people experienced in the mid-90's (and always have and always will) is thoughtful and empathetic, if appropriately angry. The album's combination of mainstream rock sounds with industrial's grimey, electronic side makes for an infection listen and a timbre highly evocative of its time. The world was ending in the mid-90's, to paraphrase Francis Fukuyama. Though this album isn't exactly about foretelling the permanent ascension of neoliberal capitalist democracy, it is very much about the feeling that we all had that the meaninglessness produced by megacorporate, consumerist capitalism was here to stay. Since the 90's, you are only what you buy, insofar as government policy is concerned. You may wonder why I'm talking about politics more than the album. They're kind of inseparable at this point, since TDS was turned into a scapegoat for conservative angst at their loss of control over culture. My point is that when the mainstream political and cultural conversation is about how great the economy is because corporations are doing great in the stock market, you might be led to feel pretty crappy about yourself and your feeling of emptiness. That feeling has been written about since we've been writing (the Greeks coined 'anhedonia', an absence of feeling). Writing music about it is natural and, I would argue, necessary -- but the cultural backlash to this record (and I should acknowledge that it was also lauded in other circles) was essentially that this conversation, itself, is obscene, those feelings are blasphemous and anyone feeling empty should just do more church. A lot went into making this album -- special equipment to make the vocals distort nicely, a real drummer and a machine, sadness, rage, talent, King Crimson's Adrian Belew, ProTools, synths, a bunch of guitars, the house Sharon Tate was murdered in and even Reznor's late regret of having fetishized that place. It takes a long time to unpack -- probably as long as its cultural legacy. You can draw a lot from this album. If you don't feel profound sorrow when 'A Warm Place' comes on to follow the rage of 'Big Man With A Gun', you need to seek therapy. You can also learn a hell of a lot about America's Culture Wars by listening to this, reflecting on depression and self-destruction and then reading the skin-deep vitriol that was written about it by conservatives. Listen to The Downward Spiral with an open mind. If you haven't been depressed, imagine feeling hopeless in a time when your TV tells you everything is awesome. Imagine a summer cold and watching your friends play in the sun, except you're an adult and the cold is in your heart and it's gone on for months. That sadness and anger is what this album is about, with pinpoint precision, a profound empathy and a delicate touch, if you're willing to listen. The end of this album is harrowing: from 'Big Man With A Gun' through 'Hurt', you're on a rollercoaster headed someplace scary and there is a deft craft involved in making that happen. If you listened to this and thought, 'that's just some shock-rock noise,' I would implore you to put on an Anal Cunt record and please punch yourself in the nose. 5/5 and eat shit, Robert Bork.

Kind of mind blowing music. I seriously enjoyed this more than I expected to and more. “I wanna fuck you like an animal” is the craziest lyric of all time

5/5. Introduced me to NIN. Its both a personal account of a man’s downfall and a heavily influential industrial metal album.

A brilliant concept album that still sounds unique and fresh today, oozing with attitude, rage, and sonic wizardry.

One of my favorite albums ever.

Finished. I don’t think I’ve listened to that from start to finish before. Amazing. It’s not shocking that he moved to movies. He creates a good soundscape.

Absolutely incredible. I listened to this a hundred times and it is awesome every time. S-Tier!

Certified banger. Love this one.

Meni a lakoćom jedan od najboljih albuma devedesetih

An outstanding collection of songs that has not dulled in the 30 years since release. Every song oozes class in a way that I don't think NIN have quite topped since.

Classic of classics here. And I love it. But... pretty hate machine is just better in almost all ways. This commits and pulls off the industrial sound way better but the songs just aren't there for me personally. I had to put on thier debut after this and its just my preferred listen. I think downward is bookended well but that middle portion doesnt have good enough songs. It nails the concept and if thats what your here for then it sticks the landing. I want memorable songs and this doesnt have it other than closer. I'll shit on it all day for fun but its still incredible. Its still damn near perfect but I just have my own thoughts that are outside of the normal convention. Pretty hate machine is a 5 and this is like a 4.8. Why cry over spilt milk here. Listen to it and feel the factory around you

One of the best live acts I’ve ever seen. Absolutely brilliant album

My favourite albums of all time. Wish I could give it more stars.

If any album best exemplifies the early to mid 90s, it is this one. Everything about it is perfect, and perfect albums are rare. From the opening declaration of “Mr. Self Destruct”, Trent Reznor sets the listener up for one dark journey. We truly are led down a fucked up downward spiral, like some kind of drug and alcohol-fueled waterslide into oblivion. From the furious opener we go to the surprisingly low-key “Piggy”, an arrogant declaration that “nothing can stop me now”. “March of the Pigs” is pure hardcore circle pit fury, followed by the greasy, sexy “Closer”. The brazen declaration of wanting to “fuck you like an animal” was a revelation to kids in the mid-90s—I remember hearing it for the first time during the summer leading up to my freshman year of high school. “Ruiner” and “I Do Not Want This” are full of desperation. We slide from the bravado of “Big Man with a Gun” into “A Warm Place” for just a moment of some kind of comfort before “Eraser” and “Reptile” cast us into pure darkness. The title track borrows themes and melodies from throughout the record to summarize this downward spiral, and “Hurt” is the storyteller’s uncomfortably intimate confession of self-harm. As dark as this record is, it is a kind of therapy. It saved lives by showing young people in the same dark places that nobody is alone in suffering. Being able to relate to the anger or desperation or sorrow or hopelessness is a strong kind of medicine. Trent Reznor apparently apologized when he delivered the record to Jimmy Iovine, but this was the record that the world needed in 1994.

Enjoyed running to this

This album was already an unreal experience before "Hurt" closes it out. But damn, it makes the whole album much more powerful. Great use of noise and distortion on this album and the atmosphere is heavy. I like the small break we get in "A Warm Place". This album's a masterpiece

This is one of my favorite albums <3

Abrasive and gritty in a way that actually manages to work. I have had a number of albums so far which try to handle heavy industrial elements in a song to varying degrees of success. But none to the same degree of mastery of Trent Reznor, from start to finish this albums sound is tonally congruent with the aggression and self-destructive themes while remaining perfectly melodic, it makes perfect sense why Reznor would have worked in sound design given how he has an ear for making so many of these sounds work. Perhaps I am just looking for more things to glaze this album over but as always, bonus points for an album structure that enhances the experience of a full listen rather than just singles. While the whole thing is certainly contains a fairly dreary mood throughout I would say the faster thrills of the beginning of the album really do give way to a downward spiral in self-destruction, capping off beautifully with Hurt.

This sounds awesome, very impressive mixing and instrument work. Real top-shelf sicko stuff. Not a single track was wasted on this album I reckon. Closer in my mind is the soundtrack to a scary orgy scene in a film. Ruiner is musically spectacular. Thank you Adam Curtis, for introducing me to NIN (albeit, predominantly ‘With Teeth’ tracks), a fitting soundtrack to our interesting times. Highlights: Closer, Ruiner, A Warm Place, Reptile, Hurt

I've listened to this album so many times that I've worn out my favourite tracks to the point they sound bad and that the tracks I originally thought were mid I now think are phenomenal. Despite this i still uncover something new to enjoy and appreciate on each listen. This time.e was no different. The unfortunate reality of this album though is being so influential that every local industrial artist sounds like a cringe school shooter version of Reznor (trench coat included) The vocals walk such a fine line between being bad that anyone trying to emulate this style is inevitably doomed to fail. 9/10

"How are you tonight? Having a good time? Ready to party, have fun? Well, that was the last guys, wrong fucking band. We are here to have a bad time." This is the second CD I ever bought when I got my car (first being ABBA Gold). I don't have the words to exactly articulate how much I love this album but put simply, I wouldn't have HEALTH or Deftones without NIN. As much as I adore Johnny Cash, I really do think this is the better version of Hurt. Can't think of many other albums that foster such a hateful atmosphere it is truly wonderful to listen to something so sincerely grim and angsty. Parts of this album feel cathartic in the same way that a lobotomy would be and I am very happy to own good headphones to listen to this on. One of the easiest fives that I have given during this project. Also on a repeat listen of this album, I found that it really elevated the experience of browsing /r/kitchencels. Highlights: Mr. Self Destruct, Piggy, Closer, A Warm Place, Reptile, The Downward Spiral, Hurt

Really good and defining album. Cuts deep, unironically.

"God is dead and no one cares....if there is a hell, I'll see ya there".....ok, take it easy, bub. Seriously though, folks...This is an awesome listen. Pretty sure of the 150 or so albums I've done so far, this is the one I have listened to the loudest. Not a genre I'm well-versed in, but this is the paragon of industrial, right? Love how some tracks are so fucking heavy and harsh but others are so soft and melodic. Nothing fucks with "Hurt", not even Johnny Cash's cover. I'll die on that hill. "March of the Pigs" will be forever a banger. Standout tracks on this listen: "Ruiner", "I Do Not Want This", "A Warm Place"

What a banging record. It’s a perfect mix of punk spirit and electronic experimentation. If you don’t like it it’s probably your fault.

It's a five, life changing album for me.

I fuck with it. Intense and fun

proud in its depravity but a bit sad to look at directly

my first ever concert was NIN at fujirock 2013. This album's special to me. 1994 has so many great albums.

Sorti en 1994, "The Downward Spiral" est une oeuvre viscérale, un monument de rock industriel, une expérience totale, une plongée suffocante dans les abysses de la psyché humaine. "The Downward Spiral" est un opéra conceptuel brutal qui nous narre la descente aux enfers d'un protagoniste qui, étape par étape, démantèle sa propre identité, sa foi, ses relations et finalement son humanité. Chaque morceau est une station de ce chemin de croix nihiliste. La production, réalisée en grande partie dans la tristement célèbre maison où Sharon Tate fut assassinée, est une entité à part entière. Trent Reznor, en architecte du chaos, superpose les couches de sons abrasifs, les rythmiques martiales, les dissonances métalliques et les mélodies synthétiques maladives pour créer un environnement sonore d'une richesse et d'une violence inouïes. Dès les premières secondes de "Mr. Self Destruct", le ton est donné : une agression sonore et textuelle qui ne laissera aucun répit. S'ensuit une procession de titres devenus iconiques. "March of the Pigs" et son alternance schizophrénique entre couplets frénétiques et refrains au piano presque ironiques ; "Heresy", brûlot anti-religieux sur un beat martial et implacable ; et bien sûr, "Closer". Réduire ce titre à son refrain provocateur serait une erreur. C'est avant tout un cri de désespoir, une quête de connexion si intense qu'elle passe par l'avilissement, l'animalité comme seul moyen de sentir encore quelque chose. La force de l'album réside dans cette cohérence absolue entre le fond et la forme. La musique n'illustre pas seulement le propos, elle est le propos. La distorsion crasseuse est la pourriture de l'âme, les rythmes syncopés sont les battements d'un cœur paniqué, les murmures spectraux sont les fantômes de la culpabilité. Le voyage se poursuit, de la fureur paranoïaque de "Reptile" à la cacophonie industrielle de la pièce-titre, pour s'achever sur l'un des plus grands miracles de l'album : "Hurt". Après un tel déferlement de violence et de bruit, "Hurt" arrive comme une reddition. Une ballade crépusculaire, acoustique et fragile, où le protagoniste, au bout de sa spirale, contemple les ruines de son existence. La douleur n'est plus une arme tournée vers l'extérieur, mais une simple et terrible constatation. Que Johnny Cash, en fin de vie, ait choisi de reprendre cette chanson en dit long sur sa puissance universelle et sa pureté émotionnelle. C'est la conclusion parfaite à un voyage terrifiant. "The Downward Spiral" est un excellent album mais il n'est pas le chef d'oeuvre que beaucoup attendent car la perfection de "The Downward Spiral" est aussi sa propre cage. Son excellence tient à sa nature hermétique, à son refus total de la lumière. C'est un voyage à sens unique, une exploration si complète et si dévouée à son sujet – la négation, la douleur, l'isolement – qu'elle en devient presque un exercice de style ultime. Un chef-d'œuvre, suggère au contraire une transcendance, une porte de sortie, même infime, ou une complexité émotionnelle qui dépasse son cadre initial. "The Downward Spiral" est un tunnel. Un tunnel magistralement construit, terrifiant et fascinant, mais dont on ne sort pas indemne, et dont on ne sort peut-être pas du tout. L'album est une capsule temporelle parfaite du nihilisme des années 90, un monolithe noir, impénétrable et sans concession. Il est l'expression parfaite d'une seule et même trajectoire : la chute. Pour son influence, pour sa production, pour sa cohérence implacable et pour l'honnêteté brutale de son propos, "The Downward Spiral" est un album absolument indispensable et mérite sans l'ombre d'un doute sa note de 5/5. C'est un classique, un point de référence, un rapport d'autopsie sublime et le documentaire parfait de l'effondrement.

It's a perfect album to me. It does exactly what it wants to achieve, with no choices that don't fit it's goal. You might not like it, or feel it's too challenging, but you can't deny how it manages to make you feel, or the way it portraits mental illness. Past that, this is a seriously groundbreaking album, the intensity and mix between rock/industrial sounds/ambient music/techno is really interesting. An album people should experience, though many will say it's not for them

Changed my life. Felt like a dangerous, unique and challenging album in my late teens. Holds up very well 31 years later. Feels different now than it did when I was 17/18, but that’s a good thing. Nearly perfect, certainly a top 3 favorite record of my life (so far).

A masterpiece.

It's personal, driven, and beautifully dark. It's loud and sometimes soft and sometimes makes you want to run through a wall and maybe join a leather/spandex clad orgy. Perfect album from start to finish.

Brilliant

Simply one of the greatest albums of all time. This is a disturbing and intriguing listen. I love its production.

I have the CD but hadn't listened to it for ages. Glad I did again now... what a perfect album. Very coherent and emotional, a real work of art. Because of the dark thematic it's not exactly everyday "feel good" music, but when in the right mood it is just perfect. Industrial rock but very varied too, and underlying even the most aggressive tracks, there is great song-writing. It sometimes takes a cover (Hurt by Johnny Cash, great in its own right) to appreciate that. I was listening to Amenra the other day which, although more metal, conveys some of the same emotions and is (almost) equally good. As was The Young Gods a few days ago. Glad my streak of "vanilla" albums is over now - I had too many "pleasant sounding" but musically unremarkable albums recently. This is the opposite. Give me that, any time.

Top band and A favorite album. Have seen NIN a few times in the 90s. His influence is huge!

Great album

One of the best got damn albums of the 90s, I tell you what!

Brilliant album from start to finish

One of my favorite albums of all time. Favorite track- A Warm Place.

simplemente NIN. los amo demasiado (q ganas de sexo)

sätkähdin, hermeettistä sisältöä

Nice one

Horny and angry industrial ??? Hard to pin a genre on this one. Very of era, but I vibes with it. Summer is the wrong time of year to listen to this. I need to be in a dark run down city doing class As. A concept album that doesn't get buried in its concept and excels because of it. Particularly feels alive in current year

Dark moody and intense

This is #day295 of my #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie challenge, and... not the easiest kind of listen before the weekend, right? The Downward Spiral is one of the quintessential records of the '90s (what a year in music it was, huh? In Utero, Holy Bible, just to name a few). It's a statement with a concept behind it, and not just any concept, but one that's masterfully narrated and executed: a descent of a man into self-destruction and ultimately suicide, rendered through an abrasive sound that stirs alt-rock, industrial, post-punk, techno, and more. A dark, brutal, and visceral listen. Some of the highlights are "Mr. Self Destruct," "Closer," "Ruiner," "Reptile," and "Hurt." I also like the fact that the Japanese pressing of the album includes a cover of Joy Division's "Dead Souls." Anyway, Trent Reznor is the man, one of the most compelling and uncompromising figures in modern music. This is a 5 out of 5. Looking forward to #day296.

I already own this album on CD AND vinyl so not much I can say other than it changed my life

Trent Reznor is a God among men, and this is one of his crowning achievements. I’m a sucker for concept albums, this being no exception. The concept here is extremely apparent and simple. One man is descending into madness very rapidly. When the third song on the album already has him screaming about God being dead and going to hell, you know that bro is really going through it. Every song is unique from the last, and I could see any individual song being someone’s favorite here. The one everyone knows is “Closer”, but the last song on the album is a cover of “Hurt” and is excellent as well. “Heresy” “March of the Pigs” and “Closer” are my top 3 here, and I’m praying to God that this isn’t the only NIN album. Simple but iconic album art as well. The vibes here are dark and gritty, and man do they ROCK!!!!

I love when an album takes you to another place. I’ll never grow tired of 90s music. There’s just so much experimentation along with influence that has carried to music thereafter. This album is no different when it comes to creating an influence. I hear the album and immediately can feel that I’ve heard this sound before and now realizing this is probably the root of it all. I really like the dark soundscapes and the storyline of the album which I’ll quote from Wiki: “It is a concept album detailing the self-destruction of a man from the beginning of his misanthropic "downward spiral" to his suicidal breaking point.” The album is also extremely blended and cohesive it’s hard to tell when one track ends and another begins if you’re not paying attention. Especially the transition between “The Becoming” and “I Do Not Want This”. Portishead’s Dummy came out the same year as this album and because I knew that album prior to this one I was immediately taken by the trip-hop vibes of “Piggy” and “Closer”. Again, the 90s were so great for how much explanation there was and how there was so much openness to realms of darkness which I tend to gravitate to. Genuinely keep coming back to this album because it’s so interesting and different from what I usually listen to. I will admit it was a bit abrasive for me at first but I am completely enthralled now as I keep coming back to it wanting to know more. I resonated with the wiki description as I listened through it. I felt like this album could be broken into 3 acts (i, ii, iii). Slowly the lyrics and the demeanour of the music grew darker and eventually did get to a breaking point. It was both a haunting yet beautiful journey. Right from the beginning we are introduced Act i: to the voices in his head with “Mr. Self Destruct”. “Piggy” shows him accepting his fate as he succumbs to what’s inside him. “Hersey” is my favourite track off the album because I feel to me, it’s the pinnacle before he finally spirals down. It’s his one last cry for help as he jumps into what’s coming for him. I love the call back to Piggy in the conclusion of “The Ruiner” almost as if we’re taking another level down the spiral and journey forward because “nothing can stop me now”. To me this both ends Act i and starts Act ii. “Me and My Gun” closes Act ii chapter lyrically and we’re now entering another realm of the album, where he furthers down the spiral. Act iii: I’d say this part is my favourite. The soundscapes are so interesting. It fuzzes my brain with all the different creative instrumentations. Sounds of flies, buzzing, whizzing, all types of industrial noises mixed in. We reach the title track where he reaches the point of a menacing end to one’s life, whose? We do not know for sure. I presume the voice in his head. I like that “Hurt” concludes the album as it almost feels like he’s trying to wake himself up from where his mind took him. Almost feels hopeful even though lyrically he’s hurting himself as he reflects on his actions. Such an interesting end, and perhaps, the end brings us back to the beginning as he self destructs once again. An endless downward spiral. Standout Tracks: “Heresy”, “Mr. Self Destruct”, “Closer”, “Piggy”

Legendary album, great songs, unique sound, maybe a little clunky at times, but it's still top notch thing.

I’ve listened to The Downward Spiral more times than I can count, and it remains one of my favorite albums, not just by Nine Inch Nails, but overall. It’s the kind of record I return to when everything feels frayed and heavy, not because it offers clarity or relief, but because it reflects those internal wreckages so accurately that I don’t feel as isolated in them. This isn’t background music or something I put on casually. It’s intense, immersive, and deliberately uncomfortable. There’s beauty buried in distortion, and a strange sense of honesty in the way it refuses to sugarcoat pain. “Closer” is aggressive and grotesque. “Hurt” is stripped down and resigned. Tracks like “March of the Pigs,” “Piggy,” and “Ruiner” all seem to push into emotional collapse without trying to pull back. One memory I’ll never shake is riding in a ninth-grade carpool with some honors kids; we were quietly singing along to the radio, “I want to f*** you like an animal," while someone’s mom drove us to our IB high school. We were probably all still virgins. It didn’t even register as shocking at the time. The 90s were like that. There’s no way that song would get the same airplay now. So I can’t say for sure where I first heard the rest of the album. What I do know is that I’ve played it over and over for years. My favorite Trent Reznor track is actually “Down In It” from Pretty Hate Machine. But that song feels like the seed that bloomed into something dark and unraveling, in The Downward Spiral. The recording process adds another layer to the album’s intensity. Reznor built a studio inside the house where the Manson murders happened, and tracked most of the album there using a mix of analog tape, digital sampling, broken instruments, and found sounds. The atmosphere feels claustrophobic and unstable, like the walls themselves are vibrating with pressure. There’s no clear storyline across the tracks, but the structure still feels intentional. It’s not about progress or resolution. It’s a slow and deliberate descent. When the album finally closes with “Hurt,” it doesn’t reach upward. It just stops. This album has echoed across genres in ways that still surprise me. You can hear it in the emotional violence of early Slipknot and Korn, and in the fractured layering of artists like Burial, and Health. In hip hop, artists like Kanye West and El-P borrowed its aggression and minimalism. It didn’t just shape industrial rock. It helped reframe what emotional intensity could sound like in music, whether filtered through distortion, silence, chaos, or pure static. The Downward Spiral isn’t about rebellion, catharsis, or healing. It’s about collapse. It’s about sitting in the wreckage without pretending there’s a way out. That’s what makes it so necessary.

I've heard this album a bunch. Great album from start to finish.

Aggressive and depressive at the same time. It goes from dissonant to straight rock. Incredible soundscapes that are at sometimes unsettling combined with the lyrics. I think this is a great album but I get why people don't like it.

amazing concept record, might be perfect

Not for listening late at night. What a trip but a really good one, just absolutely brilliant all around like wow. 5 stars

Fantastic album

Legendary. Omission from any best-of list should result in criminal charges.

Crazy nuts rage, kinda like it.

A classic for industrial rock. It'll melt your face off.

Already one of my fav albums. Seeing them for the first live this Aug ‘25. This listen helped me love mr self destruct for the first time

I love love love this album, I've listened to it through like at least 200 times since I first heard it. One of my all-time favourites by one of my all-time favourite bands.

Going back in the log to scream about how much I love this album. I got this in like, 1995? My brother and I were doing a bowling team and we'd qualified for some regional tournament, and while we were out of town I bought this on cassette and absolutely wore the hell out of that tape. Stone cold classic, easily one of my favorite records of all time.

My angst-ridden teenage years were well served by this album. The aggression mixed with nihilism appealed to me. 30 years later, this album holds up even if my appreciation of it is at a different level. There is a well-crafted and layered complexity that I appreciate under those aggressive anthems. It is truly a piece of art, even if it is repulsive in some ways.

Holy shit I can't believe I've never listened to this front to back. Somehow both raw and polished at the same time. Amazing lyrics. I immediately restarted the album after I finished it. The vocals over the instrumentation is some of the best shit I've heard.

This is really cool album. But in my opinion “pretty hate machine” by NIN a little bit better

One of my all time favorites

Angry, Caustic, iconoclastic, boundary breaking. This is an album I was afraid of as a kid. And there's a lot to be afraid of. Violence, sexuality, abuse, death of God, suicide. But also, moving past that, there's total brilliance here. Pretty Hate Machine is a great album. But this is where Trent really made his mark. Not my favourite NIN record, but an undeniable force. Perfect album. 10/10.

I have an interesting relationship with this album. I discovered it way before getting into music because of the Johnny Cash's amazing cover of the outro to this album "Hurt". When I finally got around to listening to it I loved it at first. Then I listened to it again and didn't like it because of the lyrics which I thought sounded edgy for the sake of being edgy. Then I listened again and realised that this album is supposed to be edgy because that's Nine Inch Nails whole aesthetic and I love it. I don't think this album is perfect but I do think it deserves its high regards. It's an essential centrepiece of the post-industrial genre. The song "Closer" has this filthy baseline over a drum machine beat with Trent singing like a depraved animal craving sex. After which the song goes into an instrumental section that keeps getting more dense with synths and fuzzy guitar for 3 minutes this song is amazing. 9/10 Favourite: Closer Least Favourite: Piggy

Grew up with this masterpiece. One of my favorite albums of all time!

i relate to this album too much

best thing ive heard from this experiment so far

ohhhhh my godddd.... ohhhhh my goddd... how did i wait so long to listen to this lmao

Wow...this album was certainly angry, anxious, aggravated, pissed off, feral, despairing... and it was executed brilliantly. I'm not often in the mood for this kind of thing but I can't deny the craft and artistry that went into it. ML-113.

Nothing to say here. Most incredible industrial album out there

I remember when I bought this when I was 15 even the jacket cover on the CD was epic--it looked more like an old vinyl album cover than a CD. This was one of those I bought back in the day before I even heard any of their music--music life before the internet--so I really didn't know what I was in for. I remember laying on the floor in my bedroom and listening to the whole thing through. Now, 30 years later it's a gloomy day and I'm in the perfect mood to listen to this masterpiece. A masterpiece in production that basically rewrote the book on industrial rock. Trent Reznor's rage perfectly synthesized. One of the great things about this, among many I haven't gotten into, is the hard to soft and back again balance that NIN achieves so fluidly in this album.

Creative, sexy, angry. What's not to like? I love the weird timing in March of the Pigs, it grabs your attention by force. You can't not get into it.

Knew this album would be on this list. Have avoided it in the past for unknown reasons, by all accounts it should be something I'd enjoy, though I just haven't bothered. I know this band on a surface level, and am aware of their influence. Aniticipating a challenging sound, though of high quality. Mr. Self Destruct I'm not sure what that sample is, but it's scary. There's a lot going on here, feels really ominous and angsty. The juxtaposition between the loud and quiet parts creates an interesting emphasis on the final chorus. Haunting atmosphere. Good. 4/5 Piggy Enjoy how the tempo and energy has completely changed from the previous track. Love the background effects. Beautifully produced. The drumming and percussion is pretty fascinating to follow along with. Great. 4.5/5 Heresy Unexpected electronics. The lyrics have a lot of edge, though is delivered in such a way that they don't veer into cringe territory. Really like how the vocals twist throughout the track. A varied range of styles. Amazing instrumental towards the end. Fantastic. 5/5 March of the Pigs Another banger drum beat. Fantastic energy. This song fucks. Everything seems to fall into place for a fatastic song. Especially amazed at the depth within the layered production. Fantastic. 5/5 Closer Absolute classic, the rawness and dark primality is just fun to listen to, combined with the surprisingly funky, infectious instrumental creates one of the iconic songs of the era. Fantastic. 5/5 Ruiner Flawless transition Really like the synth at the start of the track. When the track really kicks of it becomes a challenging listen, really strange composition though I enjoy how complicated it is. Again the production on this is nearly flawless, love how haunting and off-putting they make the guitar sound. The whole track just sounds dirty and cold. Love the vocals as well, especially the mixing on them. The sudden ending is very unexpected, though I see the vision. Fantastic. 5/5 The Becoming The bouncy instrumental over the sampled screams makes me uncomfortable, definitely feels like something is wrong. Listening to this in the dark is genuinely scary. Like how the track sort of strips down with the acoustic guitar then completely swaps its tone with the crazy electronics and the off-kilter vocals. Great. 4.5 I Do Not Want This Great transition. Like the loudness of the chorus and how the verse builds up to it, comes really sudden enhancing its effect. A simpler track, but instrumentally, just as intricate, loud and impactful as the more out there tracks. Love how it ends. Fantastic. 5/5 Big Man With A Gun Fun energy. Kinda gross, but I still enjoy it. Provocative and extremely sexual. Feels like it's made for shock value. Doesn't need to be any longer than it is. Good. 4/5 A Warm Place This is a beautiful piece of instrumental rock. Feels more like post-rock than industrial. Fantastic ambience, harrowing yet hopeful. Has a great calmness to it, though I sense some sorrow as well. Beautiful, a great moment of clarity after the raw harshness that's followed since the start of the album. Fantastic 5/5 Eraser Great transition. Really uncomfortable sounding introduction. The percussion sounds deep and grand, has a great echo to it. Lovely companion piece to the previous track. This feels more claustrophobic and mechanical. The sense of clarity is gone and we have reentered the dirty world present earlier in the album. Has an almost hypnotic rhythm. Great vocal performance, love the distortion. Carthartic and powerful. Great. 4.5/5 Reptile Feels a bit slow. There are some cool passages in the instrumental, and the vocals show a decent amount of range. I like the guitars on the chorus a lot. Grew a bit for me as it went along. Good. 4/5 The Downward Spiral Genuinely sounds like a downward spiral instrumentally, great sound design. The muted background instrumental behind the spoken word is a great touch. Hauntingly dark lyrics. Great. 4.5/5 Hurt Did not know this closed the album. Love the atmosphere. Love the more stripped back vocal focused track with less of the industrial noise as an ending to the album. No matter if it's this version or the Cash cover, the song is written so well that it really doesn't matter. The impact remains the same, especially in the context of the album its featured on. The haunting, regretful introspection present in this track makes this a legendary closer to an album which really needs it. 5/5 This album completely blew me away. Instumentally and production wise it's on a whole other level. Vocally Trent Reznor delivers a perfect performance for the style of music presented. Each track feels thought out and feels justified in their conclusion. Over all couldn't be happier. 5/5 Fave track. A Warm Place Least fave track. N/A

My unpopular opinion is that the original version of 'Hurt' found here is actually better than the Johnny Cash cover. I'm not saying his cover is bad, I think the opposite, it's excellent, but there's something much sadder I believe in a young man, as Trent was at the time of writing it, truly thinking that he had already irreparably ruined his life and his only paths were to be someone else, or die, compared with the theme of the Johnny Cash cover, where this guy has had his whole life to do better and kept failing. I mean come on mate you had 3/4 of a century, you obviously weren't doing something right upon reflection. This album is spectacular, fully deserving of 5 stars, and that album cover is the perfect depiction of the music inside.

This album was one of those moments in music history where everything went from interesting to REALLY interesting.

Went to 2 shows on The Downward Spiral tour. One of my favorite albums and experiences ever.

Trent

One of the absolute best ever. 5/5

Perfect the whole way through, from the weird industrial jazz of Piggy to my favorite track Heresy. Closer is overplayed and a meme at this point but it's still the best track on the record being an emotional low point on a record that somehow manages to dig down further after that. A song that on any other album would be the most brutal song on the record lyrically, and here it's downright cheerful in comparison to some of the other tracks. The Becoming somehow managing to keep finding ways to one up the anxiety when you thought it was taped out. Reptile with its scratching that bores into your brain. And the finale, Hurt, which has kinda been overshadowed by the Cash version at this point, but is still a fitting and poignant end to this brutal, despairing album.

This gets me closer to god. 5/5

Rating: 10/10 One of the greatest albums of all time. An incredible culmination of sound that's angry, violent, and at times beautiful, there is something new to find with every listen. A timeless classic.

I remember being blown away by this when it first came out. It made suicidal depression seem like the most exhilarating experience known to mankind. Intricate, complex, deceptively simple, magnificent songs and sounds, turbosynthed guitars, terrific lyrics. Just absolute perfection.

Most things that feel edgy, transgressive and hardcore when you are 19 just feel sort of silly and quaint when you are 49. Downward Spiral holds up.

If only Pacific Science Center had taken out the seats in the laser dome so that when 'March of the Pigs' played during Laserpalooza, all of us teenagers could have thrashed and danced around instead of being stuck in chairs. I don't think it's just nostalgia that had me thrashing around my kitchen instead. The first 5 songs are absolute monsters. Perfect mix of industrial dance punk. & maybe a year ago the nihlism would have felt a bit much, but feels a lot more appropriate living through the twilight of an empire.

Others have explained the brilliance of this album more eloquently than I probably ever could so I'll keep this short and just say I absolutely love this album, 10/10, no notes at all. Amazing.

This is way more fun than my memory of it, feels like it's quite witty somehow. Enjoyed finding new stuff like the dub influence on Piggy which I had no idea about before. I'm split on whether Hurt is still powerful or if it's quite cringey now - saying that, the 'if I could start again' line did hit me hard. Heresy is certainly laughable Marilyn Manson-esque, anti-Christian rubbish which I thought was cutting-edge social commentary when I was 14/15. Special shout-out to March of the Pigs which I happened to see (and tape!) on MTV2 before I knew who NIN were - it was fast to the point where it felt like it was going to fall apart, had guitars but also loads of electronics, a gentle piano bit in the middle of all the chaos, I loved it. Felt more 'extreme' than the thrash metal I was mainlining at the time, set me up for more interesting stuff and it was probably why I bought this album in the first place. Not idea why their other stuff doesn't do it for me, might give them another go sometime

Can't wait to see them live

I made the decision to not listen to this album today. I am very familiar with this album. I love it and I consider it to be an all time great album, but I know that this album always makes a devastating impact on my overall mood. Incredible work of art, but one that must be approached with caution

A spectacular reflection of psychosis, depression and insanity. The sounds are so precisely chosen that each song’s story shines through the cacophony. Bonus point for being a concept album

The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails is truly one of the greatest albums of all time. The way Trent Reznor delivers the concept to the listener is just perfect; he masterfully crafts the descent of the character, making you feel every moment of the spiral. It’s like VR in music, fully immersing you in the experience. The album moves from chaotic, wild moments to sudden silence, making the structure feel so dynamic. The execution of the concept is flawless, and the ending ties everything together perfectly. It’s a timeless masterpiece and an industrial rock classic; one of those albums that will never lose its impact.

Awesome

I love this album!

It's so weird that this guy does scores for prestige dra.a films now, but it kind of makes sense when you listen to this. This is basically just a soundtrack to Trent Reznors self destruction. I'm glad Trent was able to get out of it alive unlike a lot of musicians of that era.

Brilliant album So many cool sounds and textures Just reeks of sin, filth, greed, shame and all of the other human vices/emotions Pretty Hate Machine is awesome and this album takes that aesthetic and makes it even darker

6 stars if I could. A masterpiece. The sound and lyrics are really well done. You know it's a great album when someone did a thesis on it: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5322&context=thesesdissertations 1 - Mr. Self Destruct My favourite song on the album after Hurt. I love the intense bursts of sound soooo much. That is, the sound that plays when saying the lyrics during the 4 lines leading up to and including the "Mr. Self Destruct" line. 2 - Piggy Sets up the album well: "Nothing can stop me now, 'cause I don't care anymore" 3 - Heresy My favourite chorus on the album. Also, the raw drum sound is amazing. The synth that is there from the start is great too 4 - March Of The Pigs I love the increase in energy here. The "Now doesn't it make you feel better?" is a nice surprising change of tone for a second 5 - Closer Has the most streams cause of frat parties I bet, but Hurt is still the most well known song from this album (Johnny Cash made sure of that). Still very good song. I like the electronic sounding beat in the background. Also the fast synth after "You get me closer to God" is greatttt 6 - Ruiner The synth at 0:49 is so satisfying. It feels very grand 7 - The Becoming Pretty dark 8 - I Do Not Want This Nice change up with the piano 9 - Big Man With A Gun Nice intensity 10 - A Warm Place A bit of a break after the previous track 11 - Eraser I dig the hum-sounding sound 12 - Reptile Good set up for the title track 13 - The Downward Spiral Well-deserving of being the title track 14 - Hurt SUCH A GOOD SONG. My favourite off the album and by NIN even. Honestly, a favourite song of mine in general

Favourite Song: Piggy

This is the 39th album I’m rating. I’ve heard of the band and some great things about them. However, I don’t really know much about the music they do. Adding to my Playlist - Mr. Self Destruct, Piggy, Heresy, March of the Pigs, Closer, Ruiner, The Becoming, I Do Not Want This, Big Man with a Gun, A Warm Place, Eraser, Reptile, The Downward Spiral, and Hurt. Not Adding to my Playlist - Nothing. All in all I liked 14/14 songs. This was a fantastic album and was not what I expected. It was pretty loud and pretty cool.

Klesssssss

An assault on the earbuds and beautiful contrast of hard and soft Heresy Lyric: “god is dead and no one cares” Instrumental on A Warm Place made me feel very emotional Favourite songs: Closer and Hurt

Fav: Ruiner Least Fav: Piggy So many good songs, but I hope Trent Reznor is doing alright atm

Totally solid. This is a well written and well produced album. Very intentional and deliberate, not a wasted note and nothing frivolous.

Honestly, this is such a fantastic album. Trent really poured it all out here.

Never has such a horrific album been so delightful

So awesome. When I was younger, I thought Nine Inch Nails was just clinks and clanks but this is powerful. Ending on a cover of Hurt is a flex and works so well.

🔥

awesome. The stale atmosphere of this album always gives me goosebumps.

man this was full on - lots of songs that sound like they should be on tik tok with guys in Joker make-up lip syncing about their lack of gfs or something

Industrial metal masterpiece. Taking you through the throes of addiction recorded at the Shaton Tate house

Soft 5. Overall, I enjoyed the listen, but think it went on just a bit too long. I enjoyed the instrumentals, though it was a bit repetitive at times. Vocal work was a bit of a weak point for me. It was fitting of the work, but felt a bit too much in the backseat. I also didn't love the excessive use of distortion. 'Hurt' is hard not to fave, but I'll throw in 'Ruiner' in as a substitute fave.

I don’t really like the way a lot of this album makes me feel, but that’s kind of the point of it, isn’t it? It’s fucking brilliant. It’s disgusting. It’s wistful. It’s violent. It’s lonely. It’s claustrophobic. It’s the thoughts that never fully reach the front of your brain no matter how hard you focus on them and the feelings that come on too strong and/or too fleeting for you to ever make sense of. Fuck this album. I love it.

Abrasive, grimy, depraved, beautiful and groovy are all words I would use to describe this album. My favourite aspect about this album is the rhythmic sections, the rhythms created on this album are so infectious feeling simultaneously industrial and natural. The dynamics are intentionally jarring and add to the tension that is constantly weighing down on the listener throughout the record. The lyrics are hateful and raw and the songs themselves are masterfully crafted. I’ve been pretty lucky with the quality of the albums recently. 5/5

This album makes me closer to god

So insanely effective at creating that haunting grating angsty sound paired with the dynamism of Reznor’s vocals. It’s truly an experience.

What a beautiful, dark, disgusting, intense, visceral, and impactful musical and lyrical depiction of a character going down a path of depression, isolation, and hatred (self and others). Electronic beats, distorted textural guitars, vocal melodies delivered with emotional intensity (whether screamed or soft), and synths ranging from groovy to funky to noise. A simple stunning and haunting melody is used as a leitmotif throughout the story. A true album, I’m thay some passages and moments are meant to serve the album and story, rather than standalone songs (though many hold up on their own). Some songs inspire dancing, others putting your head through a wall, other sitting in the shower ugly crying. Heavy as fuck, in many ways.

This slaps. Required listening.

I'd never listened to this full album before, even though I knew I was going to love it. The Downward Spiral is a concept album that is about as raw and dark as it gets but, thanks to fantastic songwriting and incredible production, is still catchy and captivating. Its status as an iconic album of the '90s is well-earned. Anyway, my favorite story about this album is one time I was in the car with my dad, a noted music lover who listened to industrial and electronic and experimental music before I was even born, and "Closer" came on the radio (absolutely love that THAT song was the runaway single from this album that had constant airplay). The song had been out for years but it seems old dad hadn't heard this one, despite my brother definitely having this CD. He was vibing with the tunes and decided to turn the volume up. And then the chorus hit. He looked at me with an embarrassed face that made me laugh but then, rather than turning it off or changing the channel, he just turned the volume back down to keep listening. A few years later he famously walked in while my bros and I were watching "Oldboy" - similar embarrassment but respect for the art ensued.

Fantastic album

This album was so fucking crazy, honestly one of the concept album kings. I danced, I cried, I got scared, 5/5. Favorite track: Ruiner

Great record. A LOT of emotion. Multiple killer tracks with very little filler. They’re amazing live.

Masterpiece, right here. Trent really took industrial to the masses. There are slow grooves, like Piggy and A Warm Place. Obvious hits like Closer, Hurt, and March of the Pigs (My Favorite). A Hendrix/God Flesh/Faith No More sounding song, like Ruiner, right into a Front 242-ish The Becoming. It really runs the gamut. This album is a 5.

All time top five

Sometimes abrasive, sometimes beautiful, probably one of my favorite albums of all time. Also it might be sacrilegious but I prefer this version of hurt

One of my all time favourite albums.

Initial thoughts: abrasive and uninteresting. Closer has a bit more to it - a heady mix of noise and shouted lyrics over squidgy synths and distorted guitars. Still not doing much for me, but I'm slightly less bored compared to the preceding tracks. Maybe it's part of the appeal, but the production feels really rough with hard-panned vocals and noise everywhere leaving a real lack of clarity. Surprised to say that by The Becoming, I'm actually kind of settling into it. Having reached Reptile, and there's more to enjoy here than I expected. I could see myself coming back to it on another occasion. The melancholy relief coming into The Downward Spiral is quite poignant given the onslaught it follows, and finishing with Hurt... Damn. Play me any one of these tracks on its own and I'd have given it a disinterested 1 or 2, but this is the first album I've had on this list which is so much more than the sum of its parts.

klassiker, kenne ich schon, höre ich mir trotzdem wieder an.

Crushing, sad, depressing, angry, relentless, metallic, pounding... this album hasn't left me since I was 16-17 and still doesn't!

few albums i've listened as much as Downward Spiral. it'll always have a place in my heart.

Great album, great writing, very creative and innovative. Dark and emotional curb the subtlety. I have always loved this album so its hard to rate it without bias. The best part of it was reading the wikipedia, Reznor describes meeting Sharon Tate's sister who confronted him about exploiting Sharon's murder by recording the albums there. He says this made him realize that there is usually more to it. What if it were his sister? I guess it takes what it takes to discover empathy for others, but man, you've got to be next level self-centered to have that much of a lack in self-awareness. Great album, great writing, beautiful and creepy, but just because someone creates something genius, does not mean they are geniuses in all aspects. e.g. Reznor can be a genius when it comes to piecing samples together into beautiful arrangements and a total dipshit when it comes to common decency.

My rating is absolutely biased by nostalgia, I've loved this album since I was in high school... the album being 30 doesn't make it any less amazing, though! 🤘

One of the only rock albums that surpasses Yeezus at production. Maximalist perfection. A+

I wasn't expecting to like this damn thing anywhere near as much as I did. It's really really good, and I recommend it to anyone enthusiastically.

A masterpiece.

I grew up listening to this album and I think it is near perfect. Trent's study of the downfall of this no named individual is nothing short of genius. It was a staple of the 90's with Trent being a legendary musician. Several major hit songs but the other tracks are great too and contribute to the overall story of the album. It's great and I'm sure that I will listen to this many more times.

This has been in my collection since the day it came out. I love the scope of it and emotion behind it. I still get transported when I play it.

That first song ("Mr. Self-Destruct") hits, and... DAMN. You know you are in for some serious s%&t. This is such a dark album, gives out a lot of energy. It took me a bit of time to process it, kind of like Floyd's "The Wall". I know that was one of Reznor's influences on this album, and it shows. Any one of the songs separately is "wow," but then listening to it as a whole, this is a definite statement. I liked the first album of NiN, but there was something about it that just made it sound like a teen railing against everything. "The Downward Spiral" really upped the game, and I am here for it. I'd play this one definitely more than the first album. Even with songs that were overplayed ("Closer," "Hurt") they still fit into the album well. ALthough I do not find myself listening to them (my fave is "Mr. Self Destruct," probably because of Adrian Belew's work on it). An album that I can see myself coming back to, although not listening to it twice in a row. (I'm not emo enough, lol). A definitive statement, and a solid album all throughout.

This is a heavy, heavy album. Both in terms of its sound (a new level of depth for industrial music) and its lyrics (grunge ain't got nothin on this dark, brooding material). Trent Reznor (mostly) and NiN are just pumping out abrasive tracks on this album. Some of them are thunderous - Mr. Self Destruct (not my favorite, but a bold opener that sets the tone for everything after), Heresy (my new favorite on this album - absolutely pumping), March of the Pigs, the back half of both I Do Not Want This and Eraser, and Big Man With a Gun (oozing with energy and satire). Some of them are more experimental - Reptile, Closer (can you believe this is NiN's most popular song? It shouldn't work but it does), Ruiner (such a mix of sound), and The Becoming (here the album officially descends into madness). Some of them are subdued and harrowing - Piggy, A Warm Place, the title track (yikes that second half), and Hurt (what a glorious triumph of pain). As far as being music to my ears, the album is a 4. Sometimes it is tough to listen to - either the experimentation or the lyrics. But as far as blazing a trail for others, this album is a 5. Not just the edgy industrial rock/metal sound but also Reznor's use of a computer to produce music. His/their sound is all over the rest of the 90's and 00's rock sound, and Hurt was so incredible that Johnny Cash had to cover it. Gotta give respect where respect is due.

Dark, industrial, powerful, disturbing, groundbreaking. A shame this is the only NIN album in the 1001. While this is NIN's breakthrough album, The Fragile is their (his, really) masterpiece. I'm also a big fan of Year Zero - I wouldn't say it needs to be on the 1001, but it's a great album. Guess the authors needed more room for additional Leonard Cohen albums (insert eye roll emoji). The production style was so new and unique and often imitated afterwards. A great album, but certainly not an easy listen with all of its disturbing imagery. Easy 5. Favorite tracks: Mr. Self Destruct (massive aggression right from track 1), Piggy (love the live version on And All That Could Have Been), Heresy, March of the Pigs, Closer (amazing track - amazing even moreso that it was a huge hit), Ruiner (hmm, I seem to be naming all the songs), The Becoming, Big Man with a Gun, A Warm Place (shades of the instrumentals on David Bowie's Low), Eraser (very dark), Reptile (dark and sludgy), Hurt (supplanted in greatness by Johnny Cash's version, but this one is still amazing, particularly how quiet it is compared to much of the album).

This is kind of the music I like to hear. Not so smooth first time listening but still...I love the industrial and noisy total atmosphere. fast fuzzy fabulous furious, yeah, of course I love this. And hey, maybe it's a bit far fetched but I think black midi also got a lot influence from this one. pioneer of dark industrial noise rock, you have my respect. I love it more and more as I continue listening, amazed! Around 4,5/5, let's give it another 5 because the album cover is so good.

4.5/5

My god it is so good

Yes. So much yes. 5/5 Highlights: Heresy Ruiner The Becoming A Warm Place Eraser Reptile Hurt

Solid 5. It's only getting better with time.

i heart trent reznor and that one song on this album that sounds like he recorded a garbage truck

Love <3

One of the best albums of the 90s, in any genre.

8.5/10 album, highlits are warm, closer, hurt

I like industrial rock, I like angry music. I like Trent Reznors music. Instrumental and metal alike. 5/5 no notes.

Amazing and educational

The Sgt Pepper of the 1990s

A tour de force masterpiece of industrial music, The Downward Spiral, is dark, depressing, and emotional. The album would be a classic if only for Closer and much covered Hurt. That, however, is not what makes a great album. It is a master class in production and the whole atmosphere, not the bits and pieces, are what is special. Certainly not for every mood or every person, The Downward Spiral, sits at the inflection point of 90s music, as it was transitioning from generally happy techno 80s music to the darkness of grunge and much of the alt music landscape.

Masterpiece of angst and destruction. Nothing has ever or will ever feel like NIN.

Really like nine inch nails early albums...saw this tour live and DVD release is one of the best sounding live shows recorded..

Nine Inch Nails is one of my favorite bands ever and while The Downward Spiral is a classic, I fear that this may be the only NIN album on this list. That would be a bummer, because The Fragile and Year Zero are my top favorite NIN albums with The Downward Spiral coming in at third. Enough about those other albums though, this one is a total banger from front to back. My favorite songs are Piggy, Closer and Reptile. Hurt, famously covered by the late great Johnny Cash, is a great song to close out the album.

Arguably one of the most incredible and interesting albums ever made, but there's a LOT to unpack here. It's maybe best to start with the controversial, angsty, and often misunderstood lyrics. Here I'll be honest and admit that some of them appealed to me much more as a teenager than an adult. 'Heresy' is the kind of song that I feel self conscious listening to, even if I'm listening on headphones. 'Closer' is interpreted by many as an obsession with sex, rather than a piece of self loathing, as intended. But this confusion isn't surprising given the intense sexual imagery of the chorus and outro. 'Big Man With a Gun' has been alternately described as a satire of toxic masculinity, or a description of total loss of control. Despite the intention, it comes across as cringeworthy by today's standards. It's the song I'm most likely to skip. But setting that unfortunate misstep, the lyrics paint a vivid and disturbing picture of depression, sexual frustration, suicidal tendencies, and loss of humanity. People are likely to be either shocked and offended, or to feel seen. While parent groups would worry that it might have driven children to kill themselves, I actually wonder how many lives might have been saved by teenagers receiving a strong feeling of validation. Depression doesn't just go away because you ignore it, but it can get better if you don't feel alone. Now there's a very strong element of macabre in 'The Downward Spiral'. Famously, the album was recorded in the house where Sharon Tate was murdered in 1969. Reports vary on whether or not Reznor knew this when he bought the house but he certainly didn't shy away from that imagery until much later (after being confronted by Tate's sister). Reznor himself was in a very dark place at this period in his career. It's hard to think of many albums that have such difficult and personal images in their lyrics. The rumored song 'Just Do It' was believed to have been about the act of suicide. Producer Flood talked Reznor out of including it and it remains unheard to this day. What requires special attention here is the music and sound design, which were heavily influenced by David Bowie's 'Low'. The sounds defy conventional palates of rock bands, drawing on synthesizers, extreme manipulations of sound, and industrial effects. It's little wonder that Trent Reznor and (his eventual bandmate) Atticus Ross have become so celebrated for their film scores in recent years. The music has a cinematic quality to it, resembling elements of a horror film mixed with a drama of personal traumatic events and depression. Love the content or hate it, you really have to admire the craft that went into the sound. 30 years later it still sounds incredible. For me, the peak of Nine Inch Nails was their third album 'The Fragile', which takes the exploration of depression into stranger, more varied, more ambitious, and more experimental spaces. But 'The Downward Spiral' remains an absolute classic. Some will loathe this one, others will love it. But like any great art, you're likely to feel something.

This both totally appropriate for where I'm at right now and the last thing I should be listening to...but a great album nonetheless...5

Hell yes!

track after track of How The Fuck Did Trent Reznor Do This. he's one of those sound designers that just knows what Emotions sound like, so much so that u dont even need the lyrics most of the time. but thru their addition they transform these internal landscapes into anthems, burning rage directed at god and the self which are often the same thing. this whole exercise grants a comforting tactility and comprehensibility to feelings that, when felt on their own, can be too overwhelming to parse, which is p much one of The Reasons to make art...a desire to map some order onto the world even briefly, even if the direction of that order is straight to the bottom. a warm place/eraser/reptile/title track/hurt is pretty much the best five song stretch on any album...maybe others are As Good but im not confident theres anything better. unless i roll another old megafavorite soon, this will be on the v top of my ranking for this project for a long while

PERFECTION

#384. Not as good as Pretty Hate Machine, but fuck it, I'm in a generous mood today. 5/5: delicious.

It's got an anger which maybe I don't appreciate, but this is an archetype for all the imitators that came later. Still one of the best 4.5*

Such a dark great comprehensive album. I never realized how nuanced how he delivered his vocals. It's like the album exists inside his head, yet feels so expensive too.

Can't get enough Trent Reznor or NIN. Love these guys' sound.

A banger from start to finish. Quintessential 90s album.

At times a journey through my inner thoughts. 10/10 for sound and lyrics.

best NIN album. outstanding.

Would not argue with someone saying NIN is the best band of all time quite honestly. This probably isn’t even in my top 3 of theirs…

I've always massively enjoyed NIN but I find it hard to listen to them frequently because I find their music so emotionally affecting. I love the darkness as much as the next guy but I don't always want to embrace that. Anyway, this slaps but it's also too sad. 5 stars.

came to these guys as an adult and used to be a certified hater, sometimes you just gotta ask yourself... what am i accomplishing by hating something this epic and badass?

A classic, one of my favs.

Abrasive masterpiece. Not recommended for long solo drives.

More hardcore than what I choose to listen to usually. But I can appreciate this musically. It is emotional, which I think good music should always be. Goes for an emotion I usually try to avoid, but I can appreciate people feeling seen by this one and getting some release from it. I can put my personal taste aside and give this the full recognition it deserves.

Heard more than a thousand albums but this one still remains as the darkest of them all. Deeply carnal, unapologetically heavy, and lacking any sugarcoat, this album is a disturbing masterpiece and perhaps the epitome of industrial music. Overwhelmingly machine yet very human.

Fantastic.

Trent was in an angry dark place when he made this album. But man, did he make some fabulous rock ‘n roll.

Podoba mi się!

This album is insane, in a good way, every track is so good, and really different and experimental from EVERYTHING in the 90s. Favorite tracks: A Warm Place, Hurt

Just am absolutely sobering album about what it feels to just go through the worst feelings that one can go through in their life. It makes me want to not be around anymore, but I know I have to keep on trying to live through it. Phenomenal 5.

That’s an incredibly easy 5. I’ve never heard this album until today – the extent of my knowledge of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails is the few times Weird Al has touched on them in polka stuff, and that Trent Reznor did the soundtrack for Quake 2. Yeah, I know, not a great basis to work with. This album is a fucking masterclass in using sound design to convey not only a mood, or an atmosphere, but personality traits and full-fledged storytelling, and I can’t say I’ve ever really heard an album break convention to use sound so effectively as a device in this way. I love the way harsher tones denote a more broken mind, and how calming stuff represents the last bastion of sanity left in this main character we’re following. I can only assume this is partially Trent Reznor himself, whether it’s a bit exaggerated or not. I’m really just stunned; that was a very fast 65 minutes, and it’s remarkably just how much it touches on while sticking to its harsher tones – there’s elements of electronica and dance in here, anchored by some very 80s-adjacent soundscapes, but really torn apart and deconstructed, like the last grasps of a mind trying to find comfort in the past and having them distorted and ripped away. Trent Reznor’s vocal range, as far as his emotional depth goes, is rather impressive here. I could keep going, but I’m just utterly blown away. Somehow, through all of its pain, it’s kind of beautiful in its honesty. This isn’t a playlist album, not by a long shot, but for 1994, this feels deeply fresh and somehow timeless, even if it’s the least traditional sound there could ever be. It’s a really, REALLY good album, and a highly recommended listen. An incredibly easy 5.

Is Trent okay? Hah. I listened to this not too long back for the first time whilst doing a run of artist's second albums. Really enjoyed it then, and on relisten still enjoy it. Obviously Hurt and Closer are stand outs, but the whole album has a real cohesion, even if it is a bleak outlook.

Haunting, aggressive, calm

Awesome

It's not music I would choose to listen to on a daily basis but I do think that this is a great album.

Wow! not what I thought Nine Inch Nails sounded like. Amazing Favorite Track: Mr. Self Destruct

A very solid industrial album

20240826 Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral 4.5/5 I’m going to start with a bit of a ramble here first. Please, if you are going to review an album, get a bit of context about it first. And leave your anti-art critique out of it. I got on my nerves reading people talking about a concept album about the path of a person through committing suicide with “this inspire people to kill”, “this is against God message”, or other bullshit. Just because some types of music sounds “satanic” or “noisy” to you is not an excuse to unappreciated or flout it. Please, be mature, we are talking about art here, that can be used to convey something as complex as the feelings of someone going through a “Downward Spiral” to end their life. Now, to the album itself. I had a metal music phase during middle and high school, and some of the bands I liked have stayed with me during the years, mainly System of a Down. Lately I’ve been listening to some metal again, like Deftones; and my ears are getting used to listening to more heavy stuff, like Deafheaven (Sunbather is a great album, go listen to it if you have the opportunity) thanks to appreciating the sound and diving more into noisier electronica and other similar styles. Thanks to that I think I have been able to appreciate fully the experience that The Downward Spiral offers, and what a surprise. Nine Inch Nails, a band I never fully appreciated before, creates music best described as Industrial Metal, mixing together heavy rock music with electronic sounds. I feel like the sound NIN crafted into the album is a perfect match with such a heavy theme. It sounds very well produced, and it shows the mastery both Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have and have showed in the soundtracks they have published together over the last few years. Both very heavy sounding, more electronic-like, and even instrumental soft parts complement the sound of the album. I understand that this album is not for everybody, but give it and opportunity, and it can surprise you like it has surprised me. Favourite songs: Heresy, March of the Pigs, Eraser, Hurt. Least favourite songs: Piggy.

what an absolute banger.

haunting and powerful

woah! I love this album. This was one of my favourite albums in high school, so definitely major nostalgia. So so good.

No need for me to review..as I am verify familiar with Trent and his beautiful melodies.

i cant listen to this album. its good, but too many bad memories

Hey kids, do you like violence?

5/5 -

Cool

All time great. It is what it is, at maximum volume. It's the most it.

Dark, heavy and raw. These are the words this unique album make me think of. This isn't my first time listening to The Downward Spiral, but I always enjoy listening to it. There's not much else like it out there. I think Trent really shows off his creative side with this album. I can understand why some people might not enjoy how abrasive it can sound at times, but I think it works perfectly to create an atmosphere.

I get why this was a huge album. This was released when I was a kid and I understand I should have listened to it much before today. Solid album start to finish.

i thought this was going to horny all the way through but he mixed in some suicide as a special treat !

My teen years and early 20s were awful and this album was a very strong contestant for my favourite at the time. It encapsulates raw emotional pain in a way few do and progresses through different stages of that pain. Purely musically, I also think it is fantastic as Trent Reznor is very clever and does interesting things. Listens: 1 Rating: 5

Gear: DCA ÆON 2 Noire Artwork: 💊💉🖌️ Mix: 🔬💎🩹 Musik: 🐖🐖🐖 Wertung: 🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷/5

Álbum agressivo, cheio de ódio, depressão e solidão. Muito bom. Faixas favoritas: March of the Pigs, Closer, Ruiner, A Warm Place, Eraser, Reptile e Hurt.

I don't like NIN. There. I said it. Now down to business. This album is exceptionally well crafted. Every note is intentional and contributes to the overall structure. If you enjoy industrial rock or if you're just having that kind of day, you should give it a listen.

the best

Goated. All-timer. We love you Trent 🖤

Amazing! Defined the '90s.

I haven't listened to this entire album for a long time, probably since the 90s. Reznor masters mood, angst, lust, hunger. It originally came out just in time for my teenage years, and the only thing I loved more than the music was the videos. Upon revisiting, I can genuinely appreciate the ebb and flow, quiet spaces, then pounding beats with his voice screaming over them. I would sum it up with one word: sex.

I've been hooked on NIN for a few months now. Even though The Downwards Spiral is not my favorite album of his, it still goes hard and strong. Most definitely one of the best in my collection

One of the best albums ever made. Perfect balance of noise and melody. Still sounds fresh, 30 years on.

Trent has this incredible ability to put sounds together in a way that is disturbing yet groovy, sounds that hurt your ears and delight them at the same time. This is a remarkable album and NIN belongs in the club of nineties artists that went their own direction and found absolute gold in grimey dark places.

Nine Inch Nails deserves 5 stars for this for the herculean task of making industrial metal into something catchy and memorable.

Amazing

Anyone who claims this isn't a masterpiece can actually fight me.

I listen to this several times a week and i physically cannot be objective. This record was my number one for years and i know it back to front and all the Halo remixes too. You could say I am a fan. This record has EVERYTHING… dance, trance, prance? Fuckin GROOVIN for the most part. Almost no skippable tracks, ALMOST. But this is the album you put on when you need a good cry, a good staring out the window with headphones, a good sit in the closet with a boombox record. Or maybe that’s just what I did but when you have a nice big closet why the fuck NOT. How do I even start… the opening track Mr Self Destruct has a single beat which I always took as someone being whipped. COME ON THAT IS SO FUCKING COOL. In 1994 finding subversive shit was hard if you didn’t know where to look so I’d imagine this was the entryway for a LOT of people into darker music. Not to be gatekeeping or anything, but this record did eventually kinda turn into entry level NIN but I blame Closer for that. Anyway. Lyrically the record spans from super deep shit to absolute fucking nonsense so there’s a lot of ground to cover. I’ve always hated Closer lyrically and thought it was the throwaway track because the rest of the album is just insane. The exception to that is Big Man With A Gun because… what the fuck is that? Cmon bro that one could have stayed in the vault. Nobody cares about your dick ya goober. Industrial AND dancey is kinda hard to pull off without sounding corny or silly and I think this was his best effort at mixing the two. The goofy parts of Pretty Hate Machine and the actually creepy parts of Broken melt down into something way more accessible here, and it rules ass. It’s also fairly diverse with the transition from the 1st track into Piggy which is weirdly chill but evolves into chaos. Which also rules ass. Heresy could be a LITTLE bit corny with the god is dead stuff but again this was 1994 so that sort of thing was still controversial. March of the Pigs is such an insane song too. Weird ass time signature, calming piano… brilliant. Ruiner is heavy and cool and slogs along with this weird tension I’ve always loved. The Becoming is so intense. Every young person goes through some depressing time and comes out different and this song captures that feeling. Plus the lyric “god damn this noise inside my head” is cool as fuck. My first long sleeve band shirt had that all on the back and if anyone has one in a small bang my line lol. I think my favorite tracks are Eraser and The Downward Spiral. Eraser is a slow burn and it fully dissolves as it goes but maintains that intensity and feeling like yes, I am indeed losing my mind. Reptile… just gross. Sexy and sticky kinda groove and it makes you want to take a shower haha. Hurt is probably the other track I’d argue brought this into the light BUT it was the Johnny cash version that got all the credit. And I get it, but the original version is the best one. Many people who are smarter than I am have written a ton about this record so I’ll spare the rest of my feelings but i can’t overstate how important this record was. Trent was really onto something during the Broken years and he crafted this record and the b sides out of something special. Yeah some of the lyrics are a bit sophomoric but the guy knew he was gonna be huge. The Fragile is sooooo long and there are too many filler tracks on it so this is my favorite album of theirs by far. Find the B sides and remixes too. All incredibly good.

excellent album musically, lyrics reflect raw honest self-loathing and tragedy. Hard to listen to at times, but genre defining.

All right. Sit back. Put your feet up. Pop open a cold one. This is gonna get long. I have thoughts! Feelings! Irrelevant anecdotes! First, I have jokingly referred to this person as Terence Trent Reznor for so many years that I now have to stop and think what his name actually is when I want to talk about him. Misnaming someone or mispronouncing something is one of my favorite jokes but it gets dangerous the older I get and someday I will embarrass myself by saying “supposably” because I think it’s funny and some smarty-pants won’t know I’m joking and will think I’m an idiot. (Related: I had a roommate in college who gave her friends nicknames based on their resemblance to famous people. She had a friend she called Echo because he looked like someone from Echo & the Bunnymen, a friend she called Maverick because he looked like Tom Cruise, and a (female) friend she called Quasi (which had something to do with Quasimodo but not looks...I don't think). A name like Echo, Maverick, Quasi, you know to ask, “Hey, what is your actual name?” BUT she did not give EVERYONE a nickname and she had a friend she introduced as Larry and whom I called Larry for months before he said, “You know that’s not my name, right?” NO! I DID NOT KNOW THAT! But now that you mention it, you do look like Larry Mullen, Jr. Oh… My point is, maybe calling people by their actual names is best practice.) Anyway, (Terence) Trent Reznor always seems to me like he’s SO MAD at his mom and he’s just slammed the door to his bedroom because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS HIS PAIN!!! My vision of him as a petulant, selfish teenager was cemented when I read that The Downward Spiral was recorded at 10500 Cielo Drive, which just seems like the most childish of choices. And then to read further that it hadn’t occurred to him until he met Sharon Tate’s sister that it was exploitative and cruel (1) to have sought out that location in particular and (2) to have named the studio he created there “Le Pig.” Ugh! Are you in 8th grade??? (And there is some hypocrisy happening on my part because I have consumed enough media about that event that I know without further elaboration the significance of the address 10500 Cielo Drive and the reference implied by the name Le Pig. So I am part of the problem. Or I was. WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER!) (Reading further, I see that he moved out of the house in 1993 BUT TOOK THE FRONT DOOR WITH HIM! The door on which was written in Sharon Tate’s blood the word “pig.” Classy!) Any-anyway, the album’s theme is nihilistic self-destruction on the titular downward spiral. More reading tells me that (T)TR resisted friends’ suggestions at this time that he get himself on antidepressants and that makes me like him even less because if your friends are telling you to do that, maybe it’s because self-destruction tends to destroy a lot more than the self? I get that artists worry that antidepresh meds will blunt their precious gifts but is the gift of your art worth the grief you may be causing your loved ones by not getting help? Shrug emoji! (It seems he eventually got married, had a bunch of kids, won some oscars and is “happy” now, so good!) Any-any-anyway, is this a good piece of art? Yeah, I think so. As cheerful as I seem, nihilism and self-destruction are themes that I identify with more than I’d like. I kind of prefer it when broken people realize they’re broken and try to unbreak themselves but I don’t get to write the end of every story. Nine Inch Nails has a unique sound, brash grating industrial noise breaking suddenly into a lilting piano medley can really get to me, even if the story ends with no hope, “the pain eternal.” I actually like this album a lot.

In 1990 I became a huge fan of Pretty Hate Machine from Nine Inch Nails. When The Downward Spiral was released in 1994 I loved Closer and Hurt, but an hour of anger seemed less appealing and so I never actually acquired or listened to the entire album. Fast forward to the early 2000s… the Internet opened new avenues of music acquisition so I hoovered up albums much faster than I could consume them. Sometime during that period I added this to my library. I likely listened to this once then moved on to other shiny things. I’m thrilled that this project has put the spotlight on The Downward Spiral. This incredible album did not deserve the short shrift I gave it. I did have an incredulous moment when I saw this that it wasn’t Pretty Hate Machine. A few songs into the listen the feeling faded as I realized there’s a strong case to elevate this above my old favorite. The Downward Spiral packs a surprising amount of nuance here amongst an awful lot of rage. This is incredibly satisfying to listen to. It’s likely that the me of the 90s and early aughts was too optimistic to spend much time with this dark masterpiece. The me of today is very much at home here.

So very very dark but it really gets a groove on too! Lyrically suspect but he’s a great vocalist. Musically it’s heavy of course, but a great range of pace and style. I know I’ll end up in hell, but I really love this album. It’s an album for the right occasion, usually alone under headphones and not distracted but the joyous things in your life.

Visceral and intense. I cannot stress how important this music was for people like myself, living in rural America. Before you could just go find music on the internet, finding a CD like this one was life changing.

Absolutely enthralling, with not a single weak track. The Downward Spiral is just as powerful and honest as ever. A dirty and cathartic masterpiece. <3

The album, like the story it tells, is a chaotic mess, and I love it

I fucking love this album, it has gotten me through life in a lot of ways. I’m too biased to even really review this, but so many great tracks. This is really a unique and complete album, some cool recurring melodies and themes throughout. You didn’t hurt me nothing can hurt me You didn’t hurt me nothing can stop me now - Ruiner NIN

I do like NIN, prefer year zero but downward spiral is their 'big' album and is the best example of what they are about. I think the music is class, love march of the pigs in particular but most of the album is great. Lyrics are largely over the top depressive or made for a goth sex tape but I think they work for the music, though taken in isolation they are a bit silly. Hurt is obviously iconic too, major claim this version is better than the Cash one. I think it suffers from being made when it did, the better production of today would improve it I think, guitars in particular are too overdriven and sound very muddy. Still, bit of a classic album.

favorite album of all time fr fr

Nine Inch Nails really know how to write great Nine Inch Nails songs. I was gonna use this review to showcase my hot take that The Fragile is better but I don’t know if I think that anymore.

Just a phenomenal album. It's honestly not one of my favorite albums to listen to because of how abrasive it can be, but I appreciate the greatness of it all. It's harsh, thoughtful, insane, haunting, and brilliant all at the same time. I love the little details of the album, like how the title and album cover match the subject matter so well. Most of all, I love how relatable it ends up feeling (theoretically) and how Trent Reznor used all of the tools to his advantage to maximally fill the auditory space on each track to convey the intense and manic mental breakdown of the character in the album. If music is all about being a medium for expressing feelings and emotions, this album does it as well as any that I know of.

**In-depth Review of "The Downward Spiral" by Nine Inch Nails** **Introduction** Released in 1994, Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral" is a landmark industrial rock album that cemented Trent Reznor's status as a creative force in the music industry. The album explores themes of self-destruction, addiction, and existential angst, delivered through a blend of aggressive and haunting soundscapes. This review will examine the album's lyrics, music, production, themes, and its influence on the music industry, while also considering its pros and cons. **Lyrics** The lyrics of "The Downward Spiral" are raw, introspective, and often disturbing. Reznor's writing delves deep into the psyche of a character spiraling into madness and self-destruction. Tracks like "Closer" and "Hurt" stand out for their brutally honest portrayal of inner turmoil and nihilism. "Closer" is infamous for its explicit content, particularly the chorus, "I want to f*** you like an animal." Beyond its shock value, the song examines themes of desire, power, and degradation. The explicit nature of the lyrics serves to underscore the desperation and intensity of the protagonist's psychological state. "Hurt" is a stark contrast, offering a somber reflection on pain and self-harm. The line "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel" captures the essence of the album’s exploration of self-inflicted suffering and emotional numbness. Reznor’s ability to convey vulnerability and despair in his lyrics is a significant strength of the album. **Music** Musically, "The Downward Spiral" is a complex and innovative work that blends industrial rock with elements of electronic, metal, and ambient music. The album’s sonic landscape is dense and textured, with Reznor employing a wide range of instruments and sounds to create an unsettling and immersive experience. The opening track, "Mr. Self Destruct," sets the tone with its abrasive industrial beats and distorted vocals. The aggressive, chaotic energy of the song mirrors the album’s themes of self-destruction and inner conflict. "March of the Pigs" features an unusual time signature and abrupt shifts in tempo, creating a sense of instability and urgency. The song’s frantic energy and dissonant melodies reflect the protagonist’s volatile state of mind. In contrast, "A Warm Place" is a serene instrumental that offers a moment of calm amidst the chaos. Its soothing, ambient tones provide a brief respite, highlighting Reznor’s ability to evoke a wide range of emotions through his music. **Production** The production on "The Downward Spiral" is meticulous and groundbreaking. Reznor, who produced the album himself, employed innovative recording techniques and extensive use of digital manipulation to achieve its distinctive sound. The album was recorded in the infamous 10050 Cielo Drive mansion, where the Manson Family murders took place, adding a layer of macabre history to its creation. Reznor’s use of dynamic range is particularly noteworthy. He masterfully balances loud, aggressive passages with quieter, more introspective moments, creating a sense of tension and release. This dynamic interplay enhances the emotional impact of the album. The meticulous layering of sounds and effects adds depth and complexity to the tracks. From the mechanical clanks and hisses in "Reptile" to the eerie, dissonant textures in "The Becoming," the production creates a rich, immersive soundscape that draws the listener into the protagonist’s descent into madness. **Themes** "The Downward Spiral" is a concept album that follows the downward trajectory of its protagonist. The overarching theme is one of self-destruction, as the character grapples with addiction, alienation, and existential despair. Each track represents a step further into darkness and chaos. Addiction is a recurring motif, explored through the metaphor of self-inflicted wounds and the pursuit of self-annihilation. In "The Becoming," the protagonist becomes increasingly detached from reality, losing his sense of self and humanity. The theme of alienation is prevalent throughout the album. The protagonist feels disconnected from society and struggles with feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness. This is poignantly captured in "Piggy," where the lyrics convey a sense of betrayal and isolation. Existential despair and nihilism are central to the album’s narrative. The protagonist questions the value of his existence and grapples with the inevitability of death. This is most powerfully expressed in "Hurt," where the lyrics convey a profound sense of hopelessness and resignation. **Influence** "The Downward Spiral" has had a profound influence on both the industrial rock genre and the broader music landscape. Its innovative use of digital technology and production techniques set new standards for sound design and experimentation in rock music. The album’s success helped to bring industrial music into the mainstream, paving the way for other artists in the genre. Bands like Marilyn Manson and Korn have cited "The Downward Spiral" as a major influence on their work. The raw emotional honesty and thematic depth of the album have resonated with listeners and inspired countless artists across various genres. The influence of "The Downward Spiral" can be seen in the work of artists ranging from electronic musicians like Aphex Twin to alternative rock bands like Radiohead. **Pros** 1. **Innovative Sound Design**: The album’s production is groundbreaking, with Reznor pushing the boundaries of what was possible with digital technology at the time. The meticulous layering of sounds and use of dynamic range create a rich, immersive experience. 2. **Emotional Depth**: The lyrics are raw and honest, delving deep into themes of self-destruction and existential despair. Reznor’s ability to convey vulnerability and intensity adds to the emotional impact of the album. 3. **Cohesive Narrative**: As a concept album, "The Downward Spiral" has a strong narrative arc that enhances the listening experience. The progression of the protagonist’s descent into madness is compelling and well-executed. 4. **Musical Diversity**: The album blends a wide range of genres and styles, from aggressive industrial rock to serene ambient music. This diversity keeps the album engaging and showcases Reznor’s versatility as a musician. **Cons** 1. **Dark and Disturbing Themes**: The album’s exploration of self-destruction, addiction, and nihilism can be overwhelming and may not be suitable for all listeners. Its unrelenting darkness can make for a challenging listening experience. 2. **Explicit Content**: The explicit lyrics and themes in songs like "Closer" may be off-putting to some listeners. The album’s raw and unfiltered approach can be polarizing. 3. **Dense Production**: While the intricate production is a strength, it can also be a barrier for some listeners. The dense, layered soundscapes may require multiple listens to fully appreciate and can be difficult to digest initially. 4. **Pacing**: The album’s relentless intensity can be exhausting, with few moments of respite. While tracks like "A Warm Place" offer brief relief, the overall pacing may be too intense for some listeners. **Conclusion** "The Downward Spiral" by Nine Inch Nails is a landmark album that has left an indelible mark on the music industry. Its innovative production, emotional depth, and cohesive narrative make it a compelling and influential work. However, its dark themes, explicit content, and dense soundscapes may not appeal to all listeners. Despite these challenges, the album’s strengths far outweigh its drawbacks, solidifying its place as a seminal work in industrial rock and a testament to Trent Reznor’s creative genius.

I bought this album at midnight the day of its release. I loved it then. It was angry, digital, fun and sweaty. I haven't listed to this all the way through in a long time. I forgot how awesome it was.

This was incredibly unpleasant to listen to for much of it. I think on purpose. 5 stars.

Beautiful, harrowing, horny.

Own

Really good album. Some of the lyrics approach ‘so angsty it’s cringe’ territory but imo the production more than makes up for it. Besides to be cringe is to be free.

:-/

One of the most well made, unique, and emotional rock records I've ever listened to. Every song feels unique and full of energy and empathetic emotion. It's like I'm staring into Reznor's soul while listening.

This one took a few days and a few listens, but I am very glad I took the time. It’s dark, loud, and abrasive instrumentally and lyrically. This album makes exceptional use of dynamics, lulling you in with quiet electronics before smashing your head open with drums that sound like shotgun blasts and guitars with enough effects to induce a headache. Exceptional art piece at telling a story and leading you on this downward spiral with the main character. This felt like the soundtrack to an alternate version of Fight Club where the narrator gets really into heroin. P.S. The vocals at the end of The Becoming sound kind of like Toad and I can’t unhear it.

Man, The Downward Spiral was honestly quite the listening experience and it was one i didn't regret a single second of. Many of the songs just sounded perfectly heavy in the way that they are just fun to rock out to while seamlessly blending in many electronic influences. Throughout the album, there were so many cool moments involving the vocals and the music that made me ask \"How are Trent and the other members of the band doing this?\". This is one heck of an amazing album and is probably the best one i have done so far. Sorry Appetite For Destruction, you have been dethroned. Best Song: Reptile Worst Song: Piggy

Masterpiece.

one of the best albums of all time

hype as heck i should walk inside of factories more often

Yeah. 5 stars. This album is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. Not a single weak song. Goddamn, if I could give this higher than 5 stars I would. Masterpiece.

A personal favorite. Formative.

Simply incredible and one of my all time favorite albums.

This is one hell of an album. So good. Very varied.

One of my faves of all time

What he said 👆