The Downward Spiral

Trent Reznor conceived the album after Nine Inch Nails' run on the Lollapalooza tour. He was in dispute with TVT Records at the time and set up Nothing Records with his manager John Malm Jr. as a subsidiary of Interscope. In parallel he worked out the story: the life and death of a man who turns against humanity, kills God and then attempts suicide. It was recorded in the house in Los Angeles where the Manson Family committed their murders in 1969. Reznor converted it into a home studio and named it Le Pig, after the word the killers had written on the door in blood. He has said he wanted the sound to move away from the abrasion of the Broken EP towards mood, texture and restraint. Alienation, addiction, religion, violence, sex, power, depression and the complete loss of control over oneself and one's surroundings are the subjects, laid out in order. The metaphors are layered deeply enough that no single reading closes the record, and it is treated as one of the defining works of the 1990s. The running order here is the original's as printed.