As a child, I knew so little about hell. I remember my grandmother saying if you were scared of going to hell, you weren't likely to go. I wish this had put my mind at ease, but my unrest was due to the din of religion, hammered into my head, just as I approached adolescence. In an Evangelical church, I was instructed to fear God, and I did. I feared God more than I feared hell, and what I learned about God made me fear Him more and more. What I learned of hell made me fear myself. I wasn't scared of going to hell; I was certain I was going.
Twenty years have passed, and I don't believe in God, but I fear Him all the same. I fear I might be wrong. You see, religion is a barb that is hard to pry from under your skin without significant damage. I choose now to believe the universe is a clock with no clockmaker, and I am the evidence you need to understand why. Despite the efforts of the Christian church, everything I was taught not to be, I became. Everything I was told to fear, I forsake. I think this was always going to happen.
In 1994, I sat alone in my room with my headphones on. I had borrowed a copy of The Downward Spiral, and I was listening in secret. I pored over the visceral artwork, began to memorize horrifying lyrics. Alarms went off in my mind as I read dangerous truths: "I am a silencing machine / I am the end of all your dreams"; "your god is dead, and no one cares"; "I fear I'm the only one who thinks this way"; "I now know the depths I reach are limitless." The lyrics were printed in pale, serene blue. Every letter was lowercase, minimizing the self who was being described. I was thrilled and terrified; I was making a copy of the record on a cassette with no label, black like a masked disguise. I began transcribing the lyrics in a notebook, like a monk carefully making a copy of the Bible.
Listening to that album for the first time, alone in the dark, was not only pivotal, it was crucial. It was the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Nothing in my life has made more of an impact than this album. It has been an echo—or perhaps I was the echo of it—for any desperate question of sex, hate, death, love, or religion. It was the first piece of art to tell me someone else felt this way—not necessarily Trent Reznor, but a man who is the author of his own destruction. The Downward Spiral was a monolith bringing instructions from an advanced form, and nothing else in my life—ever—including God, has commanded such respect, idolization, and fear of the subsequent danger as this album has and still does.
The Downward Spiral is the story of a man tearing himself apart. The opening sample of someone being beaten reflects the flagellation of the lyrical and thematic content throughout the 14 song cycle that follows. The ghastly reveal is so intensely personal, you wonder if you should even listen. Sonically, it is equal parts nightmare and dreadful euphoria, like you are falling—if you forgive the blatant analogy. I realized on first listen that the album was not limited to the onslaught of the first single, "March of the Pigs", or the perverse glamor of Nine Inch Nails' best known song, "Closer". Reznor himself asserts, the album works best as a whole. It is a complete saga; no topic is missed, no emotion uncovered, except the obvious: hope.
It is a great and terrible beast, at times menacing from beyond, rearing its head, set to devour. Tracks like "Heresy", "Ruiner", and "Reptile" are especially reeling mechanical blows. Harsh percussion and undulating bass are coupled with Reznor's siren-like voice. He seethes in falsetto, he growls and wails, he cries in agony. At times the songs are still and reflective, notably during the jazzy non-commercial single "Piggy" and the somber instrumental "A Warm Place". The two-part ending is the title track and what would be a concert closing number for a solid decade, "Hurt". The former is the protagonist imagining the end, knowing he could bring it soon—"problems do have solutions, you know / a lifetime of fucking things up fixed / in one determined flash". Reznor says he backed off at the last minute but had considered actually suggesting that the listener go ahead and do it; you know, for art or whatever.
The final track is probably Nine Inch Nails' most definitive statement: "I will let you down / I will make you hurt". Longtime art contributor Rob Sheridan said of Nine Inch Nails that he finds a common theme, both visually and aurally, that there is something wrong. The Downward Spiral is the primary example and unquestionably essential sentiment. The listener can't help but feel they are seeing something the mind cannot comprehend without succumbing to horror and madness. I remember that I was no longer wondering if I should stop listening because my parents would find out. I began wondering if I was opening a door that could not be closed. I was absolutely right.
There is a fine distinction between someone who is prone to a fit of angst or depression, or someone who is actually mentally ill. At sixteen, I did not know that I had a mood disorder, that my brain did not work right, but I do remember feeling from a younger age, maybe 10 or 12, that there was 'something wrong' with me. The Downward Spiral held a cloudy mirror up to a damaged mind and showed me hell. The demons were inside me. Hell was inside of me. The path of a man who would destroy himself was laid out before me, and—as I now imagine it—it was always going to be this way. It wasn't the music that was going to do this. It was not some puzzle box summoning Cenobites who would then not leave. It was a map to the puzzle box. I was already searching for it. I knew I was going to hell. Now I knew the way.
I highly recommend you listen to Further Down the Spiral as a companion piece. If I am being completely honest, I think the remix album is the quintessential Nine Inch Nails release, with "Eraser (Denial; Realization)" being its opus. I am more a fan of the stateside release than "v2" released in France and the UK, mostly for continuity's sake.
Submitted March 08, 2019 at 08:36PM by Mos_Doomsday https://ift.tt/2To5nha
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