This selection was chosen by Gen Z son. For this review we listened to the 2017 Definitive Edition vinyl reissue.

Gen X dad says… I was surprised when Gen Z son suggested we listen to and review this one. He told me that he’d tried to listen to it several years ago, when he was around 10 years old. I wasn’t aware of this and needless to say it does make me reflect a bit on my parenting skills. You can read his own thoughts on that experience below.

For a long time it seemed like Nine Inch Nails was something you either did or didn’t like. There wasn’t much middle ground when it came to the music, the videos, or the brutal live performances. That all started to change in the 2000s as Trent Reznor and his partner Atticus Ross ventured into the world of movie soundtracks. And so now in 2020, Reznor is justifiably seen as both an elder statesman and pioneer in electronic rock and industrial music. It has been an interesting progression to watch. Both with him and fans.

There’s been a ton written about The Downward Spiral over the years. This album has been a part of my life for so long I’m not sure how to review it. So I’ll just share some of my thoughts about it. I think Gen Z son’s take will be much more interesting.

The Downward Spiral isn’t my favorite Nine Inch Nails album. Reznor’s 1999 follow up The Fragile holds that place in my heart and mind. But, on the whole The Downward Spiral is his most perfectly realized work. It effectively combines the electro-industrial-pop sensibilities of NIN’s debut album Pretty Hate Machine with the brutal and noisy aggression of the Broken and Fixed EPs. Others have gone down the same path with varying degrees of success, but Reznor got it right. For the record I kind of hated Broken the first time I listened it. I think that was the point.

Listening to the album on vinyl is an interesting experience as I’d previously only had the CD version. The groupings of the songs aren’t quite suites, but they hold together well on their respective sides. That’s something I missed having only listened to it on CD all these years. It is also a better way to travel the road of anger, depression, violence, and addiction that Reznor so expertly crafted. Side C in particular, with its run of I Do Not Want This, Big Man With A Gun, A Warm Place, and Eraser is a remarkable.

One of the original press releases for the album included the following: “the downward spiral” was conceived by trent reznor as a complete work. it is in your best interest to listen to the record as a whole rather than a mere collection of songs.” That’s correct, but I imagine that’s not what most people did back in the day. Or even today.

In part that’s because of the success of the single Closer. That track, which gave more adventurous strip clubs at least a more interesting addition to their playlists, unfortunately overshadowed the album itself. It is a infectious, throbbing ear worm and it works within the context of the album. But, it doesn’t represent the album itself that well.

No doubt many a fair-weather fan who picked up the album after dancing and shouting the song’s NSFW chorus was put off pretty quickly by the grind and abrasive punch of the opening track Mr. Self Destruct. A few years ago I would occasionally stop in at CD resale shops in the ‘burbs. You were sure to always find copies of The Downward Spiral, which tells you who was buying it back in the day. I’m looking at you suburban bruhs and Karens.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the closing track Hurt before wrapping up my thoughts here. Like a lot of people I was a bit surprised when I first heard Johnny Cash’s cover version on his 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around. However, coming at the end of his run of American recordings and in the context of other covers he’d done in the series it wasn’t that unusual. It was of course the video made for Cash’s version that made it all work. Reznor’s own thoughts on the whole experience are worth searching out. In short, Reznor ultimately acknowledged that it wasn’t his song anymore. That’s a powerful and gracious response as well as a reflection on what a great song it is.

Gen Z son says… The reason I picked this album for reviewing is because I had originally tried listening to this back in 2014, when I was way younger than I am now. Needless to say, the very heavy, violent tone and the explicit lyrics of Nine Inch Nails’s 1994 LP The Downward Spiral didn’t really sit well with me. In 2020, however, those parts of the album are something that I can now listen to easily. However, some people would probably have a hard time listening to this.

Nine Inch Nails have become one of the most well-known bands, not just among rock fans, but also in the world, and it’s not very hard to see why. Not only have their songs been covered multiple times, most famously Johnny Cash with his version of Hurt, and sampled in the extremely successful hit Old Town Road by Lil Nas X as well, it’s also the fact that Trent Reznor, the frontman of NIN, is somewhat of a mastermind at songwriting.

As I said before, The Downward Spiral isn’t a very simple album to listen to. For example, the instrumentation is very loud and abrasive – distorted synths, guitars and vocals are the main building blocks for many of the tracks, albeit some quiet moments, and strange, uncommon time signatures also play a role in songs such as March Of The Pigs. Lyrically, it’s also quite explicit, with dark, profane lyrics detailing an atheist’s views on Christianity (Heresy), drug usage and self-harm (Hurt), or pretty much every line from the well-known Hot 100 hit from the album, Closer.

These characteristics, however, definitely don’t make The Downward Spiral a bad album – in fact, if anything, they’re part of what makes the album good. It’s a very solid set of industrial rock pieces that experiment with audio effects, different time signatures and even some samples from movies. Overall I’d recommend listening to it, but do keep this in mind: don’t listen to it if you’re expecting something easy to listen to. Because, trust me, The Downward Spiral is anything but.