The 500 - #201 - The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #201
Album Title: The Downward Spiral
Artist: Nine Inch Nails 

Genre: Industrial Rock, Industrial Metal
Recorded: Three Studios, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Released: March, 1994
My age at release: 28
How familiar was I with it before this week: Fairly

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #122, moving up 79 spots
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Piggy

Album cover for The Downward Spiral from Nine Inch Nails.

It was a line cook named Jeff Nisbet who first pushed a cassette copy of The Downward Spiral into my hands following a busy dinner shift at a London, Ontario, restaurant in the spring of 1994.

"You gotta hear this! It is incredible," he exclaimed.

Granted, he said that about a lot of music. Jeff was prone to superlatives when it came to his love of music and hockey. The two of us had bonded quickly around those two topics when I was first hired at the restaurant six months earlier. That, and the fact that he was, like me, born in St. Catharines, Ontario. Well, technically, he was from Thorold, -- a village that was incorporated into the Greater Niagara Region, including St. Catharines. Jeff was quite proud of being a classmate and friend of Thorold's best known citizen, Owen Nolan, who was drafted first overall into the 1990 National Hockey League by the Quebec Nordiques. Jeff proudly wore a Nolan Nordique jersey when we played pick-up hockey three times a week.

The only pictures I have of Jeff were scanned from
an old photo album -- notice his Nordiques jersey 
playing pick-up hockey.

I took the Nine Inch Nails cassette home and played it in the basement stereo of the townhouse I shared with two high school chums. I wasn't sure what I was hearing. I can't say I didn't like it. There were elements of hard rock that I appreciated; but there was something darker, grittier and more sinister about the sound. Of course, I'd heard about industrial music and could name a few bands that played the style, although I was less than enthusiastic about it. This record, the second from Nine Inch Nails, was essentially my initiation into the genre.

Industrial music was defined by the AllMusic database and website as "the most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music." It is a genre  that draws on, as the name suggests, harsh, mechanical and industrial sounds, blending them with avant garde experimental electronic noise. The pioneers of this provocative and transgressive cacophony was  the British group Throbbing Gristle, which coined the term along with the release of its first full-length record, The Second Annual Report, in 1977.

The Second Annual Report album cover from Throbbing Gristle

Although influential, Throbbing Gristle and other bands inspired by the industrial movement appealed to a niche audience and, unsurprisingly, their jarring, unconventional work did not enjoy mainstream success. However, that changed in the early 1990s with the hybrid genre of industrial metal and the emergence of bands that included Ministry, Rammstein, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails. Each had platinum-selling discs.

A collage of band logs from successful industrial metal bands of the 90s.

The Downward Spiral from Nine Inch Nails (often abbreviated to NIN, with the second N stylistically reversed) was by far the most successful record of its type. It was certified 3x platinum in Canada (300,000 units sold) and 4x platinum in the United States (four million sold).

The Downward Spiral was a concept record, detailing the protagonist's self-destructive plummet from misanthropic despair to suicidal ideation. The concept of a "downward spiral" was, prior to the album's release, an established clinical phenomenon in psychotherapy. It occurs when "negative emotions narrow one's attention and cognitive understanding of life's circumstances. This, in turn, initiates a spiral of emotional and physical changes which alter an individual's perception of their reality."

In a way, the “spiral” is an example of perpetual self-fulfilling prophecy. An individual loses his job and is unable to provide for his family. Understandably, he feels useless and inadequate. These feelings impact his ability to sleep, eat and socialize, consequently impacting his ability to secure gainful employment. Pushed deeper into depression, he begins to withdraw from friends and family. The cycle can persist without professional intervention and suicide is possible.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you experience such feelings,

contact a professional (Dial or Text 9-8-8).

I'm not sure why the ‘90s featured so many depressing and tragic themes in pop culture. Industrial metal was only one form of entertainment rife with themes of nihilism, angst and hostile social critique. It was a time of grunge music and the ironic thrift store "anti-fashion" mentality that was spawned. Even the most popular movies were bummers as they tackled grim disaster themes (Titanic, Twister); the holocaust (Life Is Beautiful, Schindler's List); mental breakdowns (The Fisher King, Girl Interrupted, Fight Club); social lassitude (Slackers, Clerks); and crazed serial murders (Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers). Regardless, I watched every flick -- sometimes more than once.

The soundtrack to Natural Born Killers featured the song Burn from
Nine Inch Nails.

I suspect there were many factors – political, economic, technological and cultural –that contributed to the general sense of disillusionment that many people felt toward mainstream institutions as the millennium drew to a close. I'm sure sociologists have examined the causes far better than I could here. However, I admit getting caught up in that general malaise. Perhaps it was  a byproduct of transitioning through my late-twenties into my early thirties.

Me aged 29 in the summer of 1994 , at a road hockey tournament

in Victoria Park, London, Ontario.

When I think back on who I was at that time, it feels less like nostalgia and more like imagination. I'm really not sure who that guy was -- the one who worked in a bar, lived with roommates and borrowed industrial metal cassette tapes from kitchen chums. Relistening to The Downward Spiral certainly brought back a few emotions, fortunately, they were a mix, and some were even jovial -- particularly remembering Jeff Nisbet and his unabashed enthusiasm for music and hockey.