Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

If you thought i was being heavy-handed before, then to quote Randy Bachman, "b-b-b-b-baby you just ain't seen n-n-n-nothin' yet."

It's NIN time. The Downward Spiral. I've been known to make semi-disparaging remarks about NIN, but that's only because they are the Five Finger Death Punch, or Gin Blossoms, or [insert ultra famous band from a much larger scene here] of industrial rock. You should know full well by now that i love Trent Reznor and his tech crew, but they are the made-in-china american flag on the iceberg that sank the Titanic. You say "industrial," i start yip-yapping about my beloved genre, and you have that deer on the highway panic attack that screams nine inch nails, i only know about nine inch nails, and honestly only one or two songs from the downward spiral 'cause i heard johnny cash cover "hurt" but i didn't really get what all the fuss is about, and actually i haven't really listened to the whole thing, i'm sorry i brought it up, can we talk about sports or cars or anything else instead!?

Calm down, dude. I'm the one who got overly excited and rambly. We can work this out. We'll just listen to it and try to describe some of the flavors.

First, NIN is Trent Reznor. He invites various people to physically help him create his music. This album is Trent, flood, and Adrian Belew (plus a few others on random tracks). Flood is a British recording engineer/producer. You might know Adrian Belew from his long running stint as the front man of King Crimson, or as the guy who makes animal sounds with guitars. There's no trickery here, this is an album fully devoted to portraying what it's like to lose your goddamned mind and sink lower that you thought possible, then kill yourself.

It's not actually a narrative concept, more random but comprehensive scenes from inside the feelings of uncontrollable self destruction. Humans as pigs is a central theme, but you have to know a lot about pigs to fully appreciate that metaphor; take everything you know about how people use pigs as a metaphor, add the general observation that they show no obvious signs of comprehending death, and really imagine thinking those things about yourself. Uncomfortable yet? That's high school level listening.

Let's jump right into graduate school seminar territory. You own some good headphones, right? Well, you need some. There aren't just two or three layers to the production. There are full parts stacked on other parts at different volume levels, and they constantly shift around the stereo field. It seems counter intuitive, but you have to turn the volume down a little and listen deeper than you've ever listened before. You'll start to notice that the loud thing happens on the left, while 4 even creepier things happen quieter on the right. There's whispering of lyrics from other songs, spoken sections, abrupt cuts, samples you could easily miss at louder volumes. In short, it is completely disorienting, and the thing you thought you heard distracts you from the other things that are happening. Thought there couldn't possibly be acoustic guitars, clean piano, and high-low vocal overdubs? Oh, they are there, along with a thousand other interesting things you haven't heard yet, like the vocal counterpoint on the track "The Downward Spiral" where he just plays with the sound of "wow-ow-wow." Note the coda (or more accurately interlude) melody recalling the melody from "Closer." Yes, this album has multiple Leitmotifs.

This is 65 minutes of the most mentally exhausting sonic and thematic turmoil. The relatable thoughts are inflated to grotesque absurdity, and the actual suicide is understated as "hurt." You should feel like you need a sandwich afterward, because all the nutrients have been sucked out of your body through your ear holes, but you're way too nauseous to actually eat it. It's fantastic!

And i get to go back to work tomorrow, and listen to people say confusingly hyperbolic nonsense. Yay.

Now doesn't that make you feel better?

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