THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL was nominated for a 1995 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.
Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor became an instant alternative-music hero with 1989's PRETTY HATE MACHINE, an angry-yet-accessible album that appealed to rock fans and club kids alike. Record-label woes led to a five-year delay for Reznor's follow-up, with two hard-edged EPs (BROKEN and its remix disc, FIXED) issued in the interim. Finally released in 1994, THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL seethes with an almost unhinged industrial ferocity, due, in part to both Reznor's frustration with messy bureaucratic entanglements and time spent with Ministry's Al Jourgensen during the peak of that band's guitar-heavy phase.
01 Mr Self Destruct 02 Piggy 03 Heresy 04 March Of The Pigs 05 Closer 06 Ruiner 07 Becoming 08 I Do Not Want This 09 Big Man With A Gun 10 Warm Place 11 Eraser 12 Reptile
13 Downward Spiral 14 Hurt
Disc 2
01 Burn 5:00 02 Closer (precursor) 7:16 03 Piggy (nothing Can Stop Me Now) 4:03 04 A Violet Fluid 1:04 05 Dead Souls 4:53 06 Hurt (quiet) 5:08 07 Closer To God 5:06 08 All The Pigs All Lined Up 7:26 09 Memorabilia 7:22 10 The Downward Spiral (the Bottom) 7:33 11 Ruiner (demo) 4:51 12 Liar (reptile Demo) 6:57 13 Heresy (demo) 4:00