Nine inch nails the downward spiral8/1/2023 Or, it may be about a self-loathing narcissist's use of sex ('Closer') and violence ('Big Man With A Gun') to take power over everything in his life before realising the damage of his abuse ('Eraser'), and taking his own life ('The Downward Spiral'). It could be an addict's descent into madness, losing religion ('Heresy') and love ('The Becoming') along the way. The lyrics are pretty open to interpretation, but it does appear to tell a story. The album's evocation of these powerful feelings led many a critic to announce it as autobiographical. It's also intensely personal, documenting the delusions and depressions of long-term drug abuse as well as dark unquenchable lust. Is that an angry hornets' nest or whirling machinery on the title track? Angular yet pleasant melodies cut through the metallic grinding all over the album, but a lot of it is genuinely hard listening material. 'The Becoming' could be a soundtrack to parts of Dante's Inferno. The whole album has an array of terrifying and confusing sounds that make for an unmatched listening experience. When the THX 1138 sound clip of a prison guard punching gives way to the first of many intense bursts of industrial cacophony, it never fails to make me wince. Self Destruct' comes over my headphones while I'm out and about, I will have to quickly fumble for my iPod to turn down the volume. It's a harrowing experience right from the beginning - if 'Mr. I don't think any Nine Inch Nails record shows that quite as perfectly as The Downward Spiral. From his empire of dirt to theirs.Ĭrafting discord and filth into beauty, and vice versa, has always been Reznor's talent. With the building of the verses and the radiating elation of that stinking mass of mucked up teens, a ballad of drug-addled self-loathing became anthemic and beautiful. Alone on the stage bathed in black with a starry landscape cascading over him, Reznor breathlessly uttered the first lines of 'Hurt'. In particular, the end of the set managed to turn the whole day around in an instant. Now I know this is far beyond the early days when their live shows involved band members lumping the stuffing out of each other, but it was an invigorating experience nonetheless. I was ready to hightail it back to the Big Smoke by the time Nine Inch Nails appeared on the main stage.Ĭoming on after an as-yet-unscandalised Lostprophets, with the daylight still lingering, Trent and co ripped into 'Hyperpower!' accompanied by an appropriate amount of strobe-lighting and smoke. Band-of-the-moment Klaxons were far too big for their tent and dozens of people were turned away. The day continued in a similarly disappointing fashion, with lukewarm sausages of a grayish pallor for lunch and terrible sound quality from most of the stages. That rank odour, mixed with the smell of beer (also entrenched in the soil for the square mile) and the odd faint whiff of vomit, made for a particularly rich and repugnant stench. This must have been going on all weekend, judging by the horrid rotting fruit smell that permeated the campground, but didn't seem to perturb the weekenders in the slightest. Some brilliant entrepreneur in the melee was peddling watermelon slices with the rind on to sun-soaked, electrolyte-deprived teenagers who proceeded to throw their scraps down in the dusty paths. I went just for the Sunday, not realising that this meant walking into a three-day-old reeking expanse of adolescent waste. It was my first UK festival experience, and the last for a long time. It has been regarded by music critics and audiences as one of the most important albums of the 1990s, and was praised for its abrasive and eclectic nature and dark themes, although it was scrutinized by social conservatives for some of its lyrics.I saw Nine Inch Nails for the first time at Reading Festival in 2007. The Downward Spiral was a major commercial success, and established Nine Inch Nails as a reputable force in the 1990s music scene, with its sound being widely imitated and Reznor receiving media hype and multiple honors, while diverging into drug abuse and depression. "March of the Pigs" and "Closer" were accompanied by music videos, with the former shot twice and the latter's heavily censored. The album spawned two singles, " March of the Pigs" and " Closer", in addition to the promotional singles " Piggy" and " Hurt". The Downward Spiral features elements of industrial rock, techno and heavy metal music, in contrast to the band's synthpop-influenced debut album Pretty Hate Machine (1989), and was produced by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and Flood. It is a concept album detailing the destruction of a man from the beginning of his "downward spiral" to his death by suicide. The Downward Spiral is the second studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released on March 8, 1994.
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