24 YEARS AGO: NINE INCH NAILS released my favourite album ever ‘THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL’. Masterpiece!
Nine Inch Nails exploded out of the gate in 1989 with their stellar debut disc Pretty Hate Machine, then satiated fans with the scorching industrial EP Broken, but by the time 1994 rolled around, fans were more than ready to see what would be Trent Reznor's follow-up act.
Reznor set up shop at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, initially claiming he was unaware of the significance of the address when he rented the house, but as many are aware, it is the home where Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered in 1969 by members of Charles Manson's family. The home had a studio dubbed "Le Pig" that Reznor used for recording both Broken and The Downward Spiral.
By March 8, 1994, Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails cohorts finally released The Downward Spiral. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart, bested only by Soundgarden's Superunkown in its opening week. But it didn't have a hot song right out of the gate.
In May of 1994, Nine Inch Nails released a funky single called "Closer" that needed major edits in order to be aired both on MTV and radio. But there was no denying the infectious nature of the song. With the memorable NSFW line, "I want to f--k you like an animal," Nine Inch Nails had a hit on their hands. "The song started with that line. Everything else kind of got pieced around that," said Reznor. "I was trying to get a vibe something like the song 'Nightclubbing' from Iggy Pop's album The Idiot. I don't know what it sounded like when it came out. But now it sounds like a real obvious, cheesy, almost disco, song--but in a cool way."
And while the song needed edits to cover the curse words, the video needed much more work before it could air. The singer told Spin, "I thought, f--k it, instead of the Super 8 video directors we've used in the past, underground people, let's go with Mr. F--king Gloss, Mark Romanek, who just did that Michael Jackson piece of s--t. But he could do a beautiful shot, Stanley Kubrick-like in its attention to detail. So we decided to spend some money and go to ridiculous lengths to recreate some works of artists that we liked, from Joel-Peter Witkin to Man Ray, Brothers Quay, this hodgepodge of stuff. The video was great. It was cool as f--k looking. Right away, MTV said, 'Can't have that, can't have that.' Now okay, there was naked p--sy. We knew that was going to get cut. And then we got complaints that people still found the video disturbing. 'Well why?' 'Well, we don't know why, but it seems satanic and evil.' And then I thought, 'Great, we did it.'" "Closer would fall just shy of breaking the Top 40 on Billboard's Hot 100, but did climb to No. 11 at Alternative Radio.
The album featured three more key tracks. "Piggy" was pure Reznor, with the song sauntering along while Reznor played guitars, bass, piano, organ, synths, drums and percussion while also singing on the track. The song is one of the few on the album to feature live drums as the singer liked the sound that emanated as he set up the mics in the studio. The track would crack the Top 20 at Alternative Radio.
The somber, gut-wrenching song "Hurt" was released in April of 1995 and climbed to No. 8 on the alternative chart. It also received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song in 1996. Sean Beavan told us of the session for the song, "We recorded 'Hurt' in Studio B at A&M studios (now Henson) because Bob Seger was on Christmas break so the room was available. Seger's microphone was still set up with it's pristine vocal chain, but when it came time to record Trent's vocal he didn't want to sing through that big polished setup in the beautiful live room. Trent preferred to sit at the console and sing through a handheld Shure SM Beta 58 so he could connect more intimately with the lyrics of the song."
He continued, "It was just the two of us in the room, sitting side by side. We did three takes, each one was incredible, I remember being in tears most of the time, and I think we just used the third take in it's entirety. Trent never wanted to do much comping, no single word edits. We always had to use whole phrases so the emotion came through. He believed the voice and the guitars were the human aspects, the emotional touchstones and that they shouldn't be perfect, they should be honest, to provide a counterpoint to the relentless machinery of the rhythm section."
While the Nine Inch Nails version of "Hurt" is the original, Reznor would later agree to let Johnny Cash record it as one of his final releases. The singer said of his decision to let Cash record it, "I pop the video in, and wow … tears welling, silence, goosebumps. Wow. I felt like I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore. It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. That winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning -- different, but every bit as pure."
The combination of a stellar record, a major hit single and a well-received tour and Nine Inch Nails were on their way to major success. And with a tipping point performance at Woodstock '94, the band reached more audiences than ever. When the dust settled, The Downward Spiral was certified four-times platinum and became the group's biggest selling disc.
UPVOTE/ RESTEEM / COMMENT Rock On!