The Downward Spiral

The Downward Spiral broke NIN into the “mainstream” of alternative music. Nine Inch Nails as a popular musical act was something that was beyond anything I could have imagined at the time. I had the opportunity to listen to the album before it came out during a live show in Chicago (also the first time I saw Marilyn Manson). They gave out free promotional disks at the show, but once the show started no one wanted to hold onto the disks on the floor so everyone threw them up in the air. I was lucky that none had hit me I the head. I’m sure others were not so lucky. To this day it was one of the best concerts that I had ever been to and is still used as a benchmark for others.

Before the concert Closer was on what seemed (to me) heavy rotation on MTV, and I experienced the video for all its wonderful imagery. Closer is not the best song in the album and it would seem March of the Pigs had a more mainstream sound and it was the first single. I continue to be baffled that this was such a hit and the only reasoning is that it has the lyric “I want to fuck you like an animal.” Shallow, yes, but pop culture itself is pretty shallow.

I can say that experiences outside the album affected me as much, if not more, than the album itself. I had already held great contempt for pop culture before, but I went full bore against pop culture and felt that its corrupting influence would ruin another great musical artists (I was wrong). I had fears that Skinny Puppy, Front 242, and KMFDM were going to be next groups to become mainstream (instead there were pale imitations, anyone remember “Gravity Kills”?).

To explain this better it is not that I do not want these artists to succeed, because I do, but I wanted them to succeed on their own terms and not by the (what I saw) uncultured and uneducated masses. Looking back at this it was a rather immature reaction and am somewhat embarrassed by it. Still, I continue my mistrust of pop culture and continue to be a pop culture cynic.

One of the qualities that makes Nine Inch Nails so great is the honesty of Trent that he places in each of his songs. The appropriately named The Downward Spiral takes the listener into a journey with Trent. Much like Dante this is a trip into Hell, but Reznor’s personal hell of declining hopes and increasing pain and apathy and exists mostly within his own head. This is without a doubt a great album, and exists in a place that at one point felt that I was in but now know that it is a place much more terrifying.

The start of the album Mr. Self-Destruct is a case of bipolar disorder. The voices in your head are nothing but correct. In this song the voices in your head indicate your beliefs, hopes, and fears; and that they are all telling lies. Halfway through the song it slows down with whispers of “You make me do this to me” and “I am an exit” then this section ends with “I am the end of all your dreams”. If that is not fucked up enough on must think that this is the start of the album; the top of the spiral – it all goes downhill from here. Of course, the voices in your head are you: the reasoning for your failures, the conscience that is ignored, and the whispers of self-doubt that trail everything you do.

The song that caused the most controversy on the album is the third track Heresy with the lyrics “god is dead and no one cares, if there is a Hell I’ll see you there.” These lyrics can be seen bluntly as a direct commentary on religion (and further) Jesus’ life and hypocrisies. Though there is a subtler meaning to this as well, it is not that religion itself (especially Christianity) itself is a bunch of lies, but that the organizations that represent religion are full of lies; and ulterior motives. In the first section Trent says, “He dreamed a God up and called it Christianity,” which refers to more of the concept of Christianity is flawed, but not the concept of God. The end of the second section he continues “Demands devotion for hypocrisies done in his name,” noting that there is a God but people are misusing God. The phrase “God is Dead” (first used by Nietzsche, who also did not mean it literally) is a reference to those that claim to represent God are only blasphemers and are killing God. Their perversion of the word of God is the death of God.

By the time we reach the fifth song, Closer, we are rapidly descending. Trent is openly crying for help, from himself. He is honest in describing the causes of his depression and self – destructiveness: hate, absence of faith and a flawed existence. Closer is a love song to nihilism. At the beginning of the song he sees the lure of nothingness as a temptress; and by the end he accepts it as being better than his beliefs; a neutral position (so to speak) of neither hate or love, faithlessness and faith, believing in the lie of existence and understanding the truth. His acceptance of this new outlook on life is sealed by the lyrics at the end, “I drink the honey inside your hive, you are reason I stay alive,” the irony is that his belief in nothing is keeping him from destroying himself.

Ruiner represents the tipping point, one can look back and try to determine how one got to this place “How did you get so big, how did you get so large?” The journey so far has been short but the start seemed so long ago that one cannot remember the journey’s origins and have the only option of proceeding further down the spiral. In the end the journey continues, “Nothing can hurt me, nothing can stop me now.” This is also a song of blame, it mentions specifically something called the Ruiner, which can easily be viewed as Jesus; but it is much more than that. The Ruiner seems to be the lie that people perceive that everything is going to get better; “There will come a day when those you keep blind will suddenly realize maybe it’s a part of me that you took to a place I hoped it would never go and maybe that fucked me up so much.”

Trent returns to the voices inside of his head in The Becoming. In turn he explores the process that people change, and how parts of people can decay and wither away. Eventually what untruths the internal voices (the sum of your beliefs) keep on telling you will wear you down. The song ends by repeating “It won’t give up it wants me dead, god-damn this noise inside my head,” showing that by this point of the journey it is a belief in suicide that causes one to continue living. This is then continued in I Do Not Want This where Trent rails against the voices in his head by demanding them not to dictate his feelings. He moves between Nihilism and a hope to carry on living. In the end there is a montage of “I want to …” indicating at least a curt acknowledgement that there is more in life to do that can not be carried out in death.

Reptile starts with a great industrial/machinery beat that I have always found fitting. Towards the end of the journey he realizes the awful lies that led him to this place; but also there is recognition of the power of deniability and belief of a place (however dismal) in the world. Such a mental state is obviously a disease, but also something precious at the same time. There has been a certain balance achieved by this journey. If anything one can take solace in this. The Downward Spiral directly follows. There a certain finality and possible end of the journey where a background of soft noise then screaming outlines the description of a suicide, this is only a vision as the listener is brought directly to the edge of committing the act to see enlightenment.

How lovely is the final, Hurt? How devastating is it at the same time? A song about the hurt that Trent (and ultimately the listener) feels in the end pain that is all one can look forward to. This is without a doubt the bottom of the spiral and the most powerful song on the album. In the end there is nothing and as most of this song will indicate, if we all end up at the same place at the end does the journey matter? Then again there is hope in this song, something very faint, as even if there is nothing in the end Trent remains describing his hurt and the journey to this point. Things fall apart, but they also remain the same.

What surprises me is that this is the album that breaks Nine Inch Nails out, it is dark and depressing. This album was much darker than the mainstream, and even though it is a great album, the subject matter didn’t turn people off. So this may be a condition of people ignoring the meaning of the album when they listened to it, or there was a general malaise that made The Downward Spiral attractive. Personally I am too cynical about pop culture to believe that popularity is based on merit alone.

The Downward Spiral is one of the few albums that I would call perfect. Every song flows together, it is deep and can promote discussions much longer than this one, and in the end it is immensely inventive. Today I appreciate this album much more that I used to when it was released (I like Pretty Hate Machine much more back then), and in a certain sense I do not consider myself the person that Trent is when he created this; but it is possible that at some point I may have understood some of these things.

Broken

My first memory about this album was the video for Wish that I saw one late night on Mtv. My first thought was “Nine Inch Nails has album?” Broken was released completely under my radar at the time. I went out the next day and bought it and didn’t even realize that it was an EP until the final song was finished, I didn’t even notice the 99 tracks until a few days later when I thought it was the coolest thing. I never did see that video again, and if you haven’t seen it then you are missing something awesome. I had seen Trent and his merry men live by then, and I wanted it to have Trent in a cage with all of us trying to get in (like a thunderdome).

Sometime later I bought the video (since lost) and watched some of my viewing partners turn away, or leave, in disgust during the Happiness in Slavery video. It was and remains hardcore. The genius of it was that this imagery fit very well with the music and Trent got away with it, he beat the record companies who without a doubt wanted to do something a little more mainstream.

Trent recorded this album in secret because the record company wanted another album like Pretty Hate Machine. They released this album anyway. For once I never recalled anyone making a fuss about it, everyone seems to complain if a follow-up isn’t the same as the original. Personally I always thought that music is an ever changing medium that should be embraced for its difference, so good for Trent. Of course I didn’t know many other people who were into Nine Inch Nails as much as I was at this time (after Downward Spiral that would change).

This album is violent. Not violence in anger, but more of a type of violence for the appreciation of the beauty of watching two will participants hurt each other; like a mixed gender fight club, with more leather. The album is partially based on The Story of O (which I have never read but know about). As a result it plays out much like a DeSade erotic S&M novel in musical form. Keeping this album an EP was a great decision. The music here burns out quickly and there were plenty of albums that have a bunch of crappy filler songs that only turn a great EP into a horrible album.

Even though this is an EP it is a very important album in the Nine Inch Nail’s discography. It established that he was interested in experimentation not only in his musical styles, but also his philosophy and themes. While Pretty Hate Machine focused on “theology” and corruption Broken is focused on S&M images and hedonism. The best experiences are the lyrics. The structure of the songs leaves the listener with bits and pieces of this poetry, but multiple listening are required to get the entire image; or concentration on just the lyrics. This is a great structure because it dishes out a different though each time through.

From the start of Pinion there is a build up to something and that bursts out in Wish and it gets the album going. In my youth I always skipped Pinion and went straight to the meat, I no longer do this. Now I rarely listen to a single song on an album, but instead listen to the entire EP together (usually including bonus tracks). This is definitely something that people don’t go for these days where it is easy to download a single song. There is a certain appreciation of the art of an entire album (or EP) that is slowly being lost.

Wish quickly becomes an in your face intense experience. This song qualifies as sounding more random screaming and noise than most other songs; but there is a beautiful pattern to it. The guitar is the most prominent but there is so much random noise and sounds that it is nearly insane that it all comes together as good as it does. Then almost unexpectedly the song just ends.

Some of the best lyrics in Last describe the song best, “My soul I pissed it all away,” and “I want you to make me, I want you to break me, and I want you to throw me away.” Once again it comes back to The Story of O but it also questions our own freewill. I love the guitar riff in this song too, the best on the album.

I have always loved the fact I hear what I believe are cannons firing in the background of Help me I am in Hell.

The bleak and continued interesting lyrics continue in Happiness in Slavery: “Don’t open your eyes, you won’t like what you see, the devils of truth steal the souls of the free;” “The blind have been blessed with security;” “Stick my hands through the cage of this endless routine, just some flesh caught in this big broken machine.” This song is a direct reference to The Story of O, the title taken from the prologue of the book; but when I first listened to this I didn’t know about that book. This song conveys what I imagine the book to be exactly, and more.

In Gave Up the lyrics discuss the inevitable result of trying to resist. Resisting slavery only will result of the destruction of every aspect of your being (sanity, all that is true) which can be avoided by giving up.

Is there an additional theme of all of us being slaves? Possible. Trent was experiencing the actions a record company that was trying to dictate what his follow-up album was to be. The end of the EP (not including the bonus tracks) he advocates giving up, which he obviously didn’t follow through on. Twice in the EP (in the last two songs) he references the “machine” which I have always seen as a reference to Pretty Hate Machine in that while in that album he discusses any deviation from “God’s will” as a sin and freedom is just God’s excuse to punish us; in Broken free will inevitably leads to submission (in one form or another) regardless. If there is a Christian God (a topic to be discussed more in future albums) he has only given us a choice to be a slave to him, or a slave to another – free will is an illusion. At the end of Broken acceptance of submission leads to enlightenment greater than pretending there is any “free will”.

Listening to the two albums together we find that there is no real free will, and the excuse itself is only a lie.

Pretty Hate Machine

Once upon a time there was a period of my life where my CD player had three albums in it, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes, and Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine. The latter seemed to summarize everything that I was feeling at the time. Trent Reznor knew me (but I was not naïve enough to think that I knew the man). As a result Nine Inch Nails, and especially Pretty Hate Machine had a large and presumably key part in my development; a fact that I still respect today.

A world without faith the world that Pretty Hate Machine inhabits it is unromantic, hopeless, and guilt-ridden this album’s influence has allowed it to break down a person and suck out all the good thoughts. It is like a trip into one of those Meth Project commercials: a pit of despair, hatred. Still this is not the work of a disturbed mind, but one of logic and rational thinking. The end result is not an album that says that life is shit, but discusses the reasons about why life is shit. Therein is the absolute genius of the album.

For example in Terrible Lie religion is not just false, but instead it is a means of control. The inferred lie is not God, or religion, but instead the need for faith in someone’s life for a balanced and happy life. In this “I want so much to believe” infers that showing faith is easy, but actual belief is much more difficult. The other half of this terrible lie is that people are generally unhappy because most don’t believe and are just as distraught. The song Sin questions the use of having good things when just a taste causes one to corrupt themselves and sin, and thus fall from grace. Head like a hole is the same thing but focused on money. Logic then dictates that good things and pleasure only exist for to deny, life is just a cruel joke.

Sanctified is just awe inspiring, it slowly builds from a low ambient beat until a nice synth beat with a little noise thrown in, it then fades to the light piano of Something That I Can Never Have. As a teenager assumed that these were about drugs (or cutting), but now that seems to be only a part of the truth. These two songs are the most powerful on the album in that they evoke the most emotional response. Each discusses about something that frees one from sin, or placing these sins out of mind; and the other talks about how easy it is to be sanctified but it isn’t something that can be done. Even almost twenty years later I find these songs hauntingly beautiful.

Kinda I Want To and Sin continues the theme further by discussing a life of sin where one takes what they want, but only to be slammed down for partaking in the enjoyment of life. Free thought has given reason and control but Sin takes away that free thought. What kind of choice is it when if we make the unpopular choice we get banished; this is equivalent to making a choice with a gun against the head. In this case it is God who is holding the gun.

The eighth and ninth tracks are the two tracks I have paid the least attention to; not because they are bad songs; but instead they are very above average songs on a perfect album. Both are almost oddballs and don’t necessary fit the theme of the rest of the album. That’s what I Get is a great song about a painful loss when the outcome was never in doubt. A great song many moons ago when getting out of a horrible relationship; “To think I was so naïve, maybe it didn’t mean that much, but it meant everything to me…”

My favorite song on the album is, and always has been, Ringfinger. The obvious interpretation of this is about marriage, but this is just an analogy of the entire theme of the album. Faith requires a true commitment that is one sided, one party has to make a promise (“sever flesh and bone”); but throughout the song there is nothing that the other party gives in return. The line “I get everything I want when I get part of you,” implies a pact with the Devil, but what is the difference if that same part is offered to the other side?

Going back to the first track on the album Head Like a Hole is a perfect fist to the face about what was going to happen in the 90s for music. The excessive and hedonistic music movement in the late 80s (hair metal being the most prominent example) could never create a song that is really minimalist and rails against the excesses in the music industry (which continue still today). This is the only song where Trent seems angry, a possible reflection against a corruption of music in popular culture. As we shall see Trent continually fights the interference of the record companies; recording Broken in secret and eventually going independent.

In the end Trent is advocating a life alternate to the faith and controls that religion places on us, but also warns that there is a price to pay (namely guilt). Either solution is better than to be stuck in the middle as one who only pretends to have faith or one who denies that these life questions plague us all. I don’t believe at any time Trent comes to a conclusion that there is no God, but instead decides that we don’t (or can’t) know God and this is akin to only guessing what the rules are.

Musically I think Trent achieved everything that he wanted to. Those who were into industrial and noise music (myself included) always talked about Trent as a sell-out, or a poser; but the reality is that we all had every Nine Inch Nails album. There was no target audience for Pretty Hate Machine because it was a highly successful music experiment that was to spawn a new audience.

I love this album as much as I did eighteen years ago. After almost twenty years this album has been the boogyman of pop culture, straying on the edge of it tempting people away towards an alternative that many have heard about but fewer have experienced.