Reznor used its commercial fallout to launch a much deeper assault on American senses: His Nothing Records imprint, a subsidiary of Interscope, developed into a platform to introduce far stranger worlds to the mainstream. "God is dead," our tour guide screams between the industrial march-beats of jackboots on the ground, "and no one cares! If there is a hell, I’ll see you there" - before you have time to wonder if you should snap his neck and run back to safety, "March of the Pigs" assaults the senses and forcibly crowns itself emperor of both ends of the emotional spectrum.Īs engrossing as it was, the contents of the disc was only a fraction of the story that unfolded around The Downward Spiral. Self Destruct" comes the introspective sleaze of "Piggy," where we’re introduced to the motives of these internal / external porcine demons. Tracks unfold into a cinematic tour of that rusted-out landscape with a brilliantly psychopathic narrator who’s constantly at war with the forces inside his soul. It alluded to an uncomfortable world none of my friends or family understood. Listening to it from beginning to end squeezed my hormonal brain right through the spiral, which was presumably a projection of Reznor’s vice-ridden lifestyle, distilled and packaged for general consumption under bleak abstractions by the artist Russell Mills. The Downward Spiral - or "Halo 8," as it’s known to NIN serialogists - is an unapologetically conceptual album.
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