Nine Inch Nails
The Downward Spiral [Deluxe Edition]
[Nothing/Interscope]
Rating: 8.3

You may have noticed that we here at Pitchfork HQ occasionally get excited about what we perceive to be the next new sound, be it in the form of an individual band or an entire newfangled genre. I myself am not above such occasional ballyhoo, most recently biting the hook hard on recently fashionable hyphenated mergers of electronics and rock, be it dance-punk or lap-pop or lance-ponk. I was completely convinced (and still am, to some extent) that guitars and computers were on the verge of ending their long, heated standoff, and that they would start making the hip new music of the future.

Well, among the many public services of the reissue is to remind us that there is usually nothing new under the musical sun, and so now, here's a 10th anniversary edition of The Downward Spiral to remind me that The Postal Service are just NIN in a better mood. When the album was first released, I wasn't concerned with any technological achievements Trent Reznor may have been conjuring-- I was too distracted by his concepts of fucking like animals, god being dead (and no one caring), and I am a big man yesIam. Sure, NIN might have provided a perfect dose of loud guitars and screaming to score my melodramatic years, but what most drew me to collect Halos was the atmosphere: fake snuff film videos, drummer microphone injuries, the Sharon Tate murder house, and lyrical self-mutilation that made Cobain sound like Vedder.

Now that I'm old, boring, and presumably less susceptible to the trappings of angst, it's possible to peel back that surface layer of fishnet and makeup and take a peek at the music underneath. And surprisingly, for music built on what I'm sure was cutting edge audio technology of the early 90s, The Downward Spiral sounds only the slightest bit aged, and not too far flung from the aggro-beats that still rule alt-rock formats. I'd even go so far as to affix Reznor with the cliché label "ahead of his time," despite the decade's worth of Wax Trax! 12-inches that surely influenced him. Still, even with all that precedent, Reznor must've done something to usher industrial music into the mainstream.

My best guess is that Nine Inch Nails hit upon just the right amount of dance music content to gloss up his dire tunes without scaring off the homophobes. Reznor's dance leanings are constantly bubbling just under the surface of The Downward Spiral, and it nearly goes without saying that the breakout hit, "Closer", leaned a bit more obviously in that direction than most of the rest of the album. Easily the record's sexiest song and slinkiest beat, its disco thump still sounds markedly current. Meanwhile, "Heresy", for all its Nietzsche-inspired deicide, is a couple clicks of the distortion dial away from being a Depeche Mode song. And don't forget, "March of the Pigs" beat "Firestarter" to the digital hardcore punch by three years.

The B-side-filled second disc of this reissue assists this hindsight. Reznor was always fond of emphasizing clubby rhythms rather than tortured screams on his many, many self-remixes. I've always preferred "Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)" from the excellent Further Down the Spiral EP to the album version. The remix replaced the original's jazzy sparseness with a graveyard of broken breakbeats. "Closer to God" and "All the Pigs, All Lined Up" confirm two of my above appraisals of Downward Spiral album tracks. And for fuck's sake, there's even a cover of Soft Cell's "Memorabilia" to balance out the much-too-easy goth karaoke of "Dead Souls", the set's other homage.

Of course, The Downward Spiral wasn't just opening my early-teen eyes to the wonders of blasphemy and extended remixes, but also to the joy of the concept album-- in coordination with Melon Collie & the Infinite Sadness, 1994/5 was a bumper crop for thematic excess. Reznor might've gone off the art-rock deep end with The Fragile, an album I have absolutely no recollection of whatsoever, but The Downward Spiral still holds together, aided by a few musical reprises and its monochromatic lyrical content. Reznor had his album dynamics down pat at the time, chasing the brutal Caspar Noe rape of "Big Man with a Gun" with "A Warm Place", the closest thing a teenager got to Eno in that era. Even the much-overrated "Hurt", which I didn't even like in the hands of a dying country singer, is a suitable post-storm calm.

That Reznor's chainsaw guitars haven't dulled after a decade of Stabbing Filter Manson knockoffs is gratifying, and that they still cut glass-- remastering or no-- is a credit to his production skills. With the benefit of Dolby 5.1 and SACD somethingorother, I'm sure the scream typhoons of "The Becoming" and the sedimentary synth layers of "Eraser" sound delightful on stereos I can't afford; (Best Buy wouldn't let me blast "Ruiner" in the demo room.) But even in obsolete stereophonic, the peekaboo drums of "Piggy" and the oscillating broken piano of "Closer" still impress.

Which is why it's a shame Reznor has largely been in seclusion since The Fragile shattered on impact. Since then, he's only emerged to restart old feuds and produce a terrible Zach de la Rocha single. Even if his songwriting talents flamed out after The Downward Spiral's extreme catharsis (how do you out-dread "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel?"), why has he been so selfish with his talents behind the board? While NIN remains in limbo, watered-down versions pollute the airwaves, hysterical critics forget that electronics and rock have met before, and only the occasional anniversary reissue reminds them that a Pennsylvania goth with a bad haircut was on to something underneath all the provocation.

-Rob Mitchum, November 29th, 2004

What does "made Kobain sound like Vedder" even mean?

lol i read that part three times but i don't get what he is trying to say.

I think it's that his lyrics are even more depressing than Cobain's.

I thought that's what he was trying to say. But then I thought how a lot of Vedder's lyrics are depressing and that assumption didn't make sense.


I think the Pitchfork pretentiousness is just evolving into cryptic namedropping and rhetoric. They've played the "washed up Pearl Jam" card quite a bit lately.

Name-dropping is their shtick.. I wrote a review mocking theirs once.. It was for a friend of mine:

John Avino
1 (single)
[Not-To-Scale Records; 2004]
Rating: 2.0

Belonging to an important internet publication has its perks: you're generally privy to information before the general public is; you're afforded the opportunity to show off your masterful use of the thesaurus; your ego is further inflated when the masses of those trying to harness their inner-indie consider your reviews as gospel. However, the trite sentiment that with the good must come some bad holds true, especially when you're forced to listen to a piece of music so horrendous you suddenly wish that Stephen Malkmus would pay you a visit and use pens to destroy your eardrums, effectively removing the possibility of having to listen to a second more. Not even a ridiculously high-end set of speakers (a must for any real fan of music) could save this kind of so-called "art"! Some of you may wonder: "Where is he going with this?" and now that I've filled my quota of meaningless - babel - that - has - nothing - to - do - with - the - review - which - is - essential - for - every - article - on - this - website you shall be lucky enough to find out.

One perfect example of the aforementioned "bad" is John Avino's latest track "1," slated to be released on his debut solo album "John Avino's Album." The absolute misfortune of having to sit through the mediocre two minutes and twenty two seconds of the synth-driven ballad fell into my lap merely because of my high status within the hipster circles. When you attain such prestigious ranks, peons always request that you review their feeble attempts at making music. This request was filled only after being asked by John Avino himself. His impressive work within the band Chinese Knife Fight (who, surprisingly, still have not released any EPs or albums) would grossly mislead someone into believing that his solo work would be worth a listen. Conversely, it made me wonder what kind of nefarious god(s) would allow an instrument other than that of the guitar to fall into Mr. Avino's inept hands.

I suppose The Big Guy(s) / Girl(s) did attempt some kind of divine intervention. Upon receiving the e-Mail containing the song, my mail filter automatically sent it to the spam folder. Apparently those things are useful at times like these. Not realizing the obvious warning, I went ahead and retrieved the message only to learn that Outlook Express would not open the file due to the fact that it felt the file may be dangerous. Dangerous to my ears, I suppose. Again, the glaring warning was not noticed.

Should this lackluster sample be an accurate representation of what the rest of the album will be like, it is highly suggested that you save your $14. Not only will you save some precious time, but you will also be saving some money which, of course, can be put towards a Radiohead album! Learn from my naivete.

- Stephen, October 2nd, 2004

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I always thought Ozzy Osbourne was the prince of darkness.

No, he's just a washed-up drug addict