The Album I Love But Rarely Want to Hear

So, it's spring 1994. I'm 14 and have a very busy, questioning mind. Ever since I moved on from Kylie Minogue and whatever random pop music happened to be on the radio, I started developing my own musical taste. I gravitated towards indie, rock, metal and dance music, which naturally led me to industrial music. The bands that resonated with me most were Ministry, Front Line Assembly and Nine Inch Nails.

I already had Pretty Hate Machine and loved the Broken and Fixed EPs that bridged the gap between PHM and what would become The Downward Spiral.

Although it would be a long time before I was officially diagnosed with depression (largely my own fault, as I hated the idea of being diagnosed and medicated—the silliness of youth), a lot of the music I listened to outside of industrial tackled darker emotions and psychological pain. While I didn't yet struggle with addiction, I still felt a connection to the darker side of Trent Reznor's music.

The Downward Spiral was particularly important because it was released after I had started actively following Nine Inch Nails, so it was a big deal. I'd heard a few of the singles, but hearing the album in full when it was released was something special.

Sonically, lyrically and conceptually, it was a masterpiece.

A visceral, ugly, tragic, open wound of a masterpiece.

Some of my favourite songs, songs I still return to regularly, are on that album and, lyrically and thematically, it has influenced and inspired me enormously.

It stayed with me and became part of me.

Hurt, the heartbreaking closing ballad, still haunts me at my lowest points, but it has also provided hope.

Right now you're probably thinking, "This doesn't sound like a negative review," and I guess you're right.

I listened to it back to back several times a day, several times a week, for months and years that followed. At home, on the bus to college and work when I had a Sony Discman. On holiday in Italy and everywhere else in between.

March of the Pigs still gets me riled up, A Warm Place still calms me, and The Becoming never fails to enthral me with its caustic digital mayhem before opening into its trippy acoustic breakdown and outro.

So why do I rarely listen to such an important album from start to finish anymore?

I'm 46 now and have lived with a recognised pornography and sex addiction for over ten years, though in reality it went unrecognised for much longer. I've also lived with a diagnosis of depression for more than twenty years and, as I've grown older, intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideation and self-harm have all been things I've struggled with.

So a lot of The Downward Spiral that I simply connected with as dark thoughts and troubled psychology in my teens carries a much greater relevance to my life as an adult.

While, as a teenager, I found it a worthwhile experience to journey from the start of the album to the finish, nowadays I don't find the same joy.

It's emotionally draining and it rarely lets up.

Which was—and still is—exactly what makes it important.

Trent Reznor doesn't shy away from self-deprecation or from addressing the darkest, ugliest parts of being human, addicted, depressed and broken.

As a writer who also rarely avoids the ugly simply to make things easier for the reader, I respect and admire that immensely.

It should be uncompromising and unrelenting because the character is undergoing an uncompromising and unrelenting collapse. To soften that journey would be dishonest.

The last time I listened to the album from start to finish was a couple of years ago. I love listening to albums. I don't own CDs anymore and mostly use Spotify now, but I still believe in experiencing an album as a complete piece of work.

Yet I have not ventured once more fully down that spiral.

I listen to my favourite songs regularly, just not the whole thing.

It starts with a bang—literally—with a sample from George Lucas' strange pre-Star Wars sci-fi film THX 1138, before crashing into Mr. Self Destruct, which immediately introduces the album's protagonist: a loosely veiled, metaphorical version of Trent Reznor laying bare his flaws, failings and self-loathing.

Then comes Heresy.

On the surface, it's catchy, aggressive and one hell of a song. Beneath that, however, faith is tested and ultimately rejected. God is discarded. Nihilism begins to take hold. As the closing line of Piggy tells us, "Nothing can stop me now 'cause I don't care anymore." Even if he's only at the top, he's already started sliding down that spiral.

That leads into perhaps the best-known song on the album—and arguably in Nine Inch Nails' entire catalogue—Closer.

It's a song that's often dismissed as little more than an explicit sex anthem when, in reality, it's about obsession, degradation and self-loathing. I also love the apparent contradiction between Heresy and Closer. After rejecting God, the protagonist now claims that this destructive obsession will somehow get him "closer to God." I don't see that as inconsistent writing; I see it as someone whose mind and beliefs are becoming increasingly fractured.

By the time we reach The Becoming, the psychological collapse feels almost complete. The song sounds mechanical, abrasive and deeply unsettling before unexpectedly opening into something strangely beautiful. It's one of my favourite tracks on the album because it perfectly captures someone losing themselves piece by piece.

And then, finally, Hurt.

One of the most heartbreaking closing tracks ever recorded. Quiet, reflective and utterly devastating. Whether you prefer Trent Reznor's original or Johnny Cash's later interpretation, the song leaves you sitting in the wreckage of everything that came before.

That's why I find The Downward Spiral so difficult to revisit.

It isn't because the album fails.

It's because it succeeds.

It succeeds so completely in portraying addiction, obsession, depression, self-loathing and psychological collapse that experiencing the whole journey has become emotionally exhausting for me.

Philosophically it's beautifully realised and incredibly courageous.

But it is also draining.

While Pretty Hate Machine explored many of the same themes beneath glossy synths and a more new-wave sheen, and Broken wrapped its darkness inside crushing riffs and furious energy, The Downward Spiral sounds exactly like its artwork.

Infected.

Dirty.

Corroded.

Caustic.

It remains one of the greatest albums I've ever heard.

It also remains one of the few masterpieces that I rarely have the emotional strength to experience from beginning to end anymore.

Not because I love it any less.

But because I understand it far more than I did when I was fourteen.

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Thanks for reading! 

This is one of two entries in the Beat community for Sasha's challenge.