The Downward Spiral 30th Anniversary Special

[00:00:30] Speaker A: Step right up. It's a very special episode of nailed a halo by Halo Journey through the music of Nine Inch Nails. I'm Jessica. [00:00:38] Speaker B: I'm Blake. You know how you can tell it's special because you're introing it and not me? Why is it so special this time, Jess? [00:00:49] Speaker A: Well, are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the downward spiral, released on this day, march eigth. [00:01:03] Speaker B: 30 years. So very long. How does that feel? How does it feel that tds has been out 30 years? [00:01:11] Speaker A: I feel ancient. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I can't even. [00:01:15] Speaker A: I guess it's like in the 90s when my mom was, like, talking to me about revolver and shit, and I'm just like, whatever, mom, she was trying. [00:01:25] Speaker B: To get you to listen to the Beatles. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Well, actually, she probably wasn't even a fan of revolver. She only likes the Beatles before they started doing drugs. So she only really liked, like, the. [00:01:36] Speaker B: Pops before they got good, you mean. So she likes the bad beatles, okay. [00:01:40] Speaker A: When they were still doing, like, a lot of cute little covers and stuff. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Well, speaking of the beatles, the downward spiral is a seminal album of the ever, I don't know, safe to say, one of our favorite albums. If I could pick one single disc, and it can't be one of the discs of the fragile. It's got to be this for my favorite nine inch nails. I think my favorite single nine inch nails disc. [00:02:09] Speaker A: I hate it. [00:02:12] Speaker B: No, you don't. I just relistened. Blasted my ass off with the five one surround mix again in the living room. Pretty intense last night. [00:02:25] Speaker A: I listened to it like I would have as a. I don't know, like, 13 or 14 year old whenever I first started listening to this album. That means I listened to it in my headphones, curled up on my bed in the female position. [00:02:40] Speaker B: That's how I did, actually, with everything around that time. [00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:45] Speaker B: But now I listen like a grown adult with a sophisticated stereo, home stereo system, the hi fi, if you could call it that. But either way, whether it's on shitty mp3 s on your family computer when you're 14 via really bad headphones, or whether it's on your hi fi in your man cave, the downward spiral still sounds as new as the day it dropped, maybe. Does it still sound fresh? How's it aged? [00:03:22] Speaker A: I think it's aged beautifully. I think it still sounds as relevant today as it did 30 years ago, and still a great ten out of ten album for me. [00:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I forget how many inches I gave it. Probably like 13 inches or something ridiculous like that. I can't remember what I gave still a ten out of ten. [00:03:47] Speaker A: But for me, this was an album that the first time I heard do little, I was like, this is a really cool album. Like, I felt really cool listening to it. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:58] Speaker A: And the first time I heard the downward spiral in its complete form, not just, like, the singles, I remember thinking that this was a very important album. Maybe it was the first album I felt that way about. Like, as I listened to it, I thought, this is going to be an album that I listen to for the rest of my life. [00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I knew it was really important to me when I first heard it. I don't know if I would have believed that I'd still be listening 30 years later. I probably couldn't fathom that amount of time, so I don't know, that would be nuts. But here I am, still listening to all the stuff I liked in high school. Nothing's changed. I haven't matured in any way. My music tastes haven't evolved. Still just that same shit. Pixies and nine inch nails. [00:04:57] Speaker A: That's all we listen to. Well, today. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not an episode about us rambling about art moody teen times. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Look, we're just trying to get warmed up a little bit here. We're a little rusty, but we don't. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Need to warm up, because it's about you all talking, not us talking, for once. Yeah. Thank God someone else can do the work. And our trusty listeners came through in a big way and gave us a bunch of audio and written content right in our inbox. So we should, I guess, start sharing these thoughts about tds 30 years on. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Let's do it. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Do you want to read the first one? The first one's written. [00:05:52] Speaker A: All right, so this is from Hannah. Hey, Hannah. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Hey, Hannah. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Thank you. Also known as an Internet explorer if you're on Instagram based meme account. And Hannah says I could go on for hours about the downward spiral. So I'll try to keep it brief, but not as brief as those biker shorts. [00:06:13] Speaker B: That's funny. [00:06:16] Speaker A: My first exposure to nin in general was seeing the video for closer on tv as a young teenager in 2006. Okay, I have a couple of questions. Hannah. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Where was it playing? Yeah, exactly where did you see that? [00:06:31] Speaker A: What channel was playing music videos in 2006? Very late at night. Vh one or early morning programming? That's the only time I remember music videos being played in the aughts. But maybe Hannah had, like, a. What was the canadian channel? Much music. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think maybe. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Maybe they had that. Okay. Anyway, I was immediately hooked and I was able to get a CD copy of tds shortly after. This was a turning point for my younger self. I have the same trauma that most nin fans have, so being able to hear tds in its entirety at that young of an age surprisingly helped. I heard a lot of lyrics throughout the album that I found to be incredibly disturbing because I understood and I heeded some of them as a warning. It's not a good thing to relate to tds. It's not a good thing to be a suicidal teenager. It's not a good thing to suffer from addiction at a young age. I didn't know how to get out of it until I did. I was finally able to begin therapy at age 18, and I consider that to be a direct result of hearing tds, seeing Trent Reznor then and seeing him after. With teeth, sober and doing well, I was able to start getting my own mental health under control. I wanted what the guy who wrote tds and then wrote with teeth had clearly achieved for himself. I wanted to feel better. Here I am 18 years later. My relationship to TDs is much different now. Most days I am on the other side of my own mental health issues. I hadn't listened to TDs much in the past five years or so, but I got to see NYN play several songs from it live in 2022, and that reminded me that it's full of absolute bangers and a great measure of the progress I've made in my own life now. I can listen to Mr. Self destruct for fun. I can make memes about it. I can wake up every day and go to sleep every night knowing I did the best I could and that above all else, I was as kind to myself as I could be. I saved my own life by seeking treatment, but TDs was the catalyst that brought me there and I am forever grateful for it. I wish everyone whose favorite album is TDs a very happy please refill your meds. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Wow. Who would have thought downward spiral helping someone's mental health struggles? [00:08:43] Speaker A: And also, thank you for the reminder. I do need to refill my oh yeah, thank you. [00:08:48] Speaker B: I just did. I'm good. [00:08:50] Speaker A: It's true. Blake made his weekly trip to Walgreens earlier today. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Well, thank you. Thank you for trusting us with personal. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Stuff and sharing it with other people. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Appreciate it and we hope it helps someone. [00:09:04] Speaker A: I have a feeling this album helped a lot of people. Yeah, like me and Hannah, probably. I don't know about you. [00:09:12] Speaker B: I don't know. It may have hurt me, honestly, but in a way that I really liked. [00:09:17] Speaker A: It's probably a little bit of both to be. [00:09:20] Speaker B: I'm. It wasn't improving my mental health. Let's just say that. Okay, Blake, next one, we've got some audio. [00:09:29] Speaker A: This one is from Jody. Hey, Blake and Jeff and Oscar. It's Jody. I just wanted to send you guys something to let you know what my thoughts about downward spiral are at this point in time. And really, over the last few years, I've really been getting more of an idea of why I love that album so much and what it means to me, especially after seeing nine Inch nails perform a lot of the songs live. When I went to louder than life in 2022, a lot of it resonated with me in such a way that I see a lot of it in a new light now. Once you see the songs live, you don't really hear them in the same way. Hearing closer, yeah, it was an awesome moment when everybody got up and started screaming, which I expected to happen. But for me, probably the most important song to hear performed live was the becoming the line. It won't give up but wants me dead. Goddamn, this noise inside my head is, like, perfect representation of what depression feels like. And when your brain is basically trying to off you and you're fighting against it, it's what that means for me. So it's very important, and it was very cathartic to sing that, to sing alongside that at the top of my lungs. Yeah, I'd say that even though the downward spiral is not my favorite Nine Inch Nails album, it probably has some of my favorite songs on it. I don't know if that makes sense, but I would say that if I had to choose, some of my favorite songs would be on that. So it's hard to believe that it's 30 years old now, because it feels relevant even now. It's an almost perfect album. I would make a case for big man with a gun being the only non perfect moment. But even that tracks as far as the concept and the story that's trying to be told there, I see why it's there, and it does have its place. And reading the Adam Steiner book really made me see a lot of the inspirations behind it. That meant a lot, so. And Adam Steiner is just a great author, as we all know. And I'm really glad that you guys got to have him on the pod, because he's a really cool dude. But I guess I just have to say that as a men fan and as a music fan in general, that a lot of these songs hold a special place in my heart and in my life. A lot of them got me through some really tough times, and I don't really have much else to say about it other than what's been said because it's just one of those things that you can't really put into words that well. But, yeah. So anyways, it was cool to chat and send you guys something real quick. So, yeah, I'll talk to you all later. Bye. I feel like saying bye. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we can. You can say yeah. Bye. Thank you for that. [00:13:16] Speaker A: Thank you, Jody. I've always been very sad that I wasn't older in 1994, although I'd be. [00:13:25] Speaker B: Older now and I was even younger. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Yeah, because you were talking about the live experience and finally getting to see one of your favorite bands. I guess it was in 2022, so almost two years ago, which is bonkers. But I would have loved to have seen them. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I really wish we were both adults in 94 because we could have seen them here in this town, which is fucking insane to think about. We wouldn't have even had to travel. [00:13:58] Speaker A: No, not at all. [00:14:00] Speaker B: We could see them on the TDs, the self destruct tour. Playing this album would have been awesome. [00:14:06] Speaker A: And my mom had a lot of really weird, arbitrary rules. Like, I couldn't shave my legs or wear makeup until I was 13. [00:14:15] Speaker B: That's cruel having to have hairy legs if you don't want to. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Had the hairiest legs in gym class. But another rule was, like, you can't go to concerts unless an adult is with you. And at twelve years old, I was definitely. There was no way she would have let me go to a Marilyn Manson or to, sorry, to Nine Inch Nails. I think Marilyn Manson might have been on that date, but I can't remember probably. But yeah, seeing those songs live was definitely very important to me, but I would give anything to have been able to experience them in 1994 live. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like a bit of a poser as 30 years ago, I wasn't exactly listening to this album. I was listening to, I don't know, DLC. [00:15:02] Speaker A: If you hear anything like, oh, definitely listening to waterfalls. Honestly, I've been going through albums from 1994 and it's really. [00:15:11] Speaker B: I can't wait till you get to TLC. [00:15:13] Speaker A: It's coming, but it's amazing how much good stuff I missed. Well, a lot of it is just being young and where we live, but some of it is also stuff I feel like maybe not as much now, but probably then would have been very gatekeeped anyway, so I probably wouldn't have felt very comfortable in certain fandoms, but it's just actually just even with these albums that are new to me, it's still so strange to me that in 1994, when two albums that mean so much to me, which would be the downward spiral and holes, lived through this, I only knew them as MTV, Buz bin type staples. I guess because it would be about a year later that I really, really sake my teeth into like, alt rock culture and got into them deeply. [00:16:06] Speaker B: It was way later for me, but that's because I was a late bloomer. [00:16:10] Speaker A: And you still haven't gone through your whole phase? [00:16:12] Speaker B: No, I'm still waiting on that one. [00:16:14] Speaker A: When will I get you into whole? [00:16:17] Speaker B: I don't know. I need to be a little older to understand it, I think maybe. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:22] Speaker B: I'm glad. She mentioned Adam Steiner and reminded me that he does have a book about the downward spiral and the making of it called into the never that we read. And it was cool talking to him and I know he mentioned wanting to do something for the 30th anniversary. So I guess watch out for Adam Steiner. Maybe he's got something up his sleeve, but not sure. I don't want to. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Doesn't want to make any promises. [00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but he might have something cool, but that reminded me of that. Anyway, this will be a three hour episode because we got a lot of responses. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Okay, so our next response is from Jamie, the bad witch. We know her tds 30th anniversary, but mostly a ramble about hurt. Okay, just to give everyone an idea what you're about to get into, jamie. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Said, hi, jess and blake feel like I haven't done these in forever, but for this, I wanted to make sure I got in. I wasn't sure exactly what to say, so I'll just ramble on about hurt if you'll allow me. [00:17:34] Speaker A: That's loud. [00:17:35] Speaker B: I'll allow it. The year is 2016. It's one of the hardest years of my life. Experiencing the loss of my grandmother, the departure of a longtime mentor figure that I had known since high school, and various issues that come with someone just turning 20 years old. Two songs really touched me during this period. One of them was hurt. One day out of the blue. I realized that despite hearing about it a lot, hurt was one of those songs that I never actually heard. I can't remember why exactly. I decided to look up the original song on Spotify and not even the cash cover, but I did. And by the time I got to, I would find a way. And the explosion of noise I was speechless, I felt relief and catharsis. Yet the lingering static haunted me even after the song ended. Hurt wasn't the first nin song I heard, but I couldn't remember a time when a song had that sort of effect on me. Eventually, I did listen to all of tds, but it would take me a few years to appreciate its sound. It really wasn't like anything I had listened to up to that point, and I didn't even know what industrial was at the time and for nin to become my favorite band. But even if it wasn't an immediate liking, I do value that first listening. And despite how awful of a year 2016 was, I can't ever take away that first listen of hurt. Sorry about the rambling. I hope this isn't too long. Thanks, Jamie. No, it wasn't rambling. It was just a few paragraphs that were well put together. I wouldn't call it a ramble. Oh, there's an asterisk. The other song was the Rainbow connection, but the name of the podcast isn't, like, muppeted. I have a very good friend who would be very interested in a podcast called muppeted by the, and he used to host a podcast with me, and his name is Adam, and he's not. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Listening, but maybe be less awkward for you. Called her, like, Henson or something. [00:19:43] Speaker B: Kermited. [00:19:44] Speaker A: That's still kind of awkward. [00:19:45] Speaker B: It is. It's awkward no matter what. But it's funny. It's a funny idea. [00:19:50] Speaker A: You've just inspired us for a follow up podcast, actually. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Shout out to Rainbow connection. And how about that Kermit cover of hurt, by the way? [00:19:59] Speaker A: True. Good cover. Come to think of it, people don't talk about that cover much. Always Johnny cash, but never Kermit. Never sad Kermit. [00:20:07] Speaker B: I hurt myself. Does that sound like Kermit? [00:20:11] Speaker A: Kind of. Okay, so Jamie mentioned first time listens, and have you ever. It's kind of like a very strange sensation, and I don't know if there's a word for it. Maybe there is, but have you ever loved an album just passionately and then kind of forget about it existing, and then one day you're like, hey, I kind of want to listen to Uncle Tupelo's Anna dying again. And you put it on, and because you haven't listened to it in so long, it's almost like rediscovering and falling in love with that album all over again. But at the same time, because you did listen to it, like, a zillion times in the past, it's still like a comfortable, familiar thing. So it's almost like you're experiencing a first listen again, but it's. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah, you forget that your brain remembered every note of it, even though it hasn't been in your brain for many years. [00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was hoping that tds, I would have, like, a first listen experience last night, but I realized that I spent, like a year of my life just dissecting this album and listening to it over and over. And if it had been like maybe ten or 15 years, it probably would have been one of those experiences. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Yeah, it's a thing. [00:21:34] Speaker A: Is there a word for that? [00:21:35] Speaker B: The Germans probably have one. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Probably. They have a word for everything. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Okay. Should we go to the next? Yes. Okay, we have something from Paul. Thank you, Paul. [00:21:47] Speaker C: Jessica, Oscar Blake. Hello. I hope. I've been wanting to do one of these for a while. So thank you. Thank you for making a podcast about my only interest. And here's how I first heard the downward spiral. It was not when it came out, it was in 2006. I'm thinking late 2006. I was 15, so sorry if I made you guys feel old. I don't believe in being old. Anywho, so my only friend at high school in Parmo, Ohio at the time was a, you know, he liked music and he burnt me a burnt copy from a burnt copy of down spiral and with teeth. Probably what were like their two biggest records at the time. Something obviously another teenage kid would have access to who was also a juggalo. And he gave them to me. And I'm like, all right, I'll do this in chronological order because I was that kind of teen and I grew up with a music family, but whatever. Sometimes I wish I didn't. So I got these freaking cds from this kid and I listened to downward spiral. My parents were gone. They rarely left me alone, but they went to some Xmas Eve party. So it was that night that I decided to set up the holiday tree that was fake alone listening to the downward spiral, and it was pretty mind blowing. I was really into Pink Floyd at the time also, so I was like, concept albums, baby. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:45] Speaker C: And synthesizers have always had a very strong effect on me. But there's my drawn out, wow two minute voicemail about how I first heard the downward spiral. [00:24:00] Speaker A: I think that Paul's inspired me to start a new Christmas tradition, and that is listening to tds while decorating the old xmas tree. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker A: How do you feel about that? [00:24:12] Speaker B: That is strange. I'm trying to wrap my head around it, and I don't know, it'd be hard to get into the mood. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Well, Paul, it was the first time listening to it, so maybe Paul didn't know. [00:24:23] Speaker B: He thought maybe it was a Christmas album. Maybe it's like, yeah, this will do. And turns out something totally different. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Your juggalo friend, though, might have recommended a little insane clown posse song called Santa Claus is a fat bitch, which is the only insane clown posse song I know. [00:24:44] Speaker B: Wow. [00:24:45] Speaker A: I won some contest when I was, like, in high school. That was a Christmas CD sampler. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Do they have a Christmas album? [00:24:54] Speaker A: And that song was on there. That's how I know it. [00:24:58] Speaker B: Okay. I hope they have a Christmas album. I hope we played the right take, because I know you sent us multiple takes. Hopefully we played the one you wanted. If not, we'll play the other one on the 40th anniversary. [00:25:15] Speaker A: We'll save it for the next ten years. [00:25:18] Speaker B: So thank you, Paul. We have won a letter here from Matthias. Am I pronouncing that right, do you think Matthias. [00:25:29] Speaker A: I would say matthias. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Matthias. [00:25:32] Speaker A: I went to school with a Matthias, and that's how it was spelled. But I don't know if that's. [00:25:37] Speaker B: I'm sorry if I'm doing your name wrong. [00:25:41] Speaker A: Also, can I do a quick correction before we dive into Matthias's? The song is actually called Santa's a fat bitch, not Santa Claus is a. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Thank God you corrected it. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I just wanted to correct. Matthias said hi. Blake and Jess, partly prompted to drop a line since hearing Nell's most recent episode wrapping up the with teeth era. You mentioned wanting fan views on tds as we're approaching the 30th anniversary. I still live and hope that Trent puts out an expanded version in the same way he did with fragile deviations. We know that there's a whole bunch of instrumentals that could do with being mastered. [00:26:18] Speaker B: I agree. [00:26:19] Speaker A: I wanted to thank you both and Oscar. I love how Oscar always gets thanked. [00:26:23] Speaker B: He's the most liked host. [00:26:25] Speaker A: I mean, it's true. I wanted to thank you both and Oscar for the pleasure I've derived from listening to nailed. While I work, I think you've created a most wonderful and thoughtful podcast, quite rightly deserving the praise that you receive from other nin fans. It's never disappointing. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Thank you. Without further ado, here's my personal view on tds. Can't wait to hear your year. Zero episodes. [00:26:46] Speaker B: Can't wait to make them, can I? [00:26:50] Speaker A: That's going to be a scary time. Okay. Like Blake, my favorite nin period was the downward spiral was the absolute apex of their sound, but I think that I should quickly follow up this statement with the additional fact that Nin had been my absolute favorite music outfit band ever. So I've generally felt positive about all of their albums. I just feel that TDs was flawless. I have to reflect on how this album has affected me at different times in my life. Currently early fifty? S. The first time I heard the album I was utterly gobsmacked by it. I mean, I could hear that it was savage, complex, brilliant, catchy. But then I also could feel the deep unease that it made me feel. I found the opening sonics of the becoming quite frightening. I had no idea where the sample of people screaming came from, but when they combined with that menacing keyboard riff, I felt like I was listening to a kind of horror film designed to be played out in my mind. Yep. Similarly, my first listen through of Eraser left me feeling on the edge of appalled at just how bleak Reznor had gone in his musical explorations. That isn't to say that I hated it. I was too dumbstruck to have a fully formed opinion. I had similar sentiments hearing the title track as well. I think I actually used some degree of willpower to stick with it. I'd never heard an album or music go so dark in places. I'd never been taken to those places, period. With the shock of the first playthrough dealt with, I was compelled to listen again. Pretty sure it was straight away. This was when I started to appreciate that the album was a masterpiece. With some of the initial shock value out of the way, I was able to appreciate the interplay between the individual tracks that TR had created, how anger could switch to exhilaration, then darkly sexy, then adrenaline pumping, then horrifying, and so on. Not only did the flow of the album feel perfect, but also the structure and energy of the tracks themselves. On the most superficial level, it was a delight to hear the playful switching from loud to quiet demonstrated in tracks like Mr. Self destruct, march of the pigs, and how that approach took a more macro effect in juxtaposing Mr. Self destruct with Piggy, big man with the gun with a warm place, and the downward spiral with hurt. At the time this album was released, I was freshly out of my first proper long term relationship and feeling very fucked up about it. Uh oh. Listening to tds at the time actually made me feel better, like a lightning conductor for my own emotional state. Even though the songs aren't about breaking up, I always felt that Trent's emotional delivery and lyrical content came from a raw and honest place. It felt like the real deal. In my own raw and painful place, I felt a very relatable connection. The other thing that really helped was thinking how Trent's heart of darkness sounded 100 times worse than mine, which in its own messed up way helped me feel better. I was in total awe that he was able to channel these existential and deeply disturbed emotions into art and make something so fucking cool, unparalleled and unique. TDS is probably the album I've listened to more than any other album I own and love. It hasn't diminished with time, only grown stronger after letting go of it as a personal breakup album. I continued listening on a year to year basis in my thirty? S, then forty? S. One thing that would often strike me as a major reason that I couldn't tire of it was the fact that I pick up on sounds hidden within the layers that I'd not noticed before. I know that Trent and co. Put maddening layers of detail into the mix. Some of this became more apparent when Trent gave away some of the instrumental versions on remix nin.com. Then, of course, you highlighted certain things from the 5.1 mix during your exploration of the album. I still think that it's the gift that keeps on giving. I agree. [00:30:24] Speaker B: We both agree. [00:30:26] Speaker A: I was briefly concerned that in getting older, I might view the album's lyrical themes more negatively, but I've not found this to be the case at all. What strikes me as we approach the album's 30th anniversary is that it's the work of a young, tormented musical genius, aided and abetted by an alchemical mix of other highly gifted, like minded musicians who were all in the right place at the right time. That is why this album is what it is. I think many of the qualities, both negative and positive, are blistering with an energy that could have only come from a twentysomething Trent. I also think that this sentiment is backed up by the trajectories of all the albums that followed. Even if the fragile was arguably written from a darker place, a certain maturity had crept in, making the album sound like it did. I hear brilliance in every single moment of the downward spiral. Not a note or track out of place. To me, it remains the most perfect album I've ever listened to. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Just listening today, I was still surprised by layers that would jump out in the mix. So it does keep on giving. [00:31:30] Speaker A: It really does. I always notice something a little bit different too, or I've forgotten that it was there. [00:31:35] Speaker B: And I'm like, oh, I think a lot of the stuff I'd just forgotten. I probably talked about it on our podcast. Already forgot. And then rediscovered again. [00:31:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a great, great album, obviously. For sure. When I said earlier that it was, like the first important album, I think it was just like the first real album album for me. Does that make sense? Like, everything flowed. [00:31:57] Speaker B: One of the first concept albums for. [00:31:59] Speaker A: Me probably is for me, too. Unless the sign is a concept album. [00:32:03] Speaker B: No, I don't think it. [00:32:05] Speaker A: By ace of bass about being beautiful. [00:32:09] Speaker B: It's like a Swedes. It can't be a concept album. It's like a rearranged american rerelease of a swedish record. Anyway, we can't talk about that. [00:32:20] Speaker D: No. [00:32:21] Speaker A: But, yeah, it was definitely probably my first. What felt like a real album. Not only did it feel important, but I was like, this is a real album. [00:32:30] Speaker B: Okay, the next one is from Laura, either Laura or Lara. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Damn, it could be Laura. [00:32:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm sorry. I hate it when something is ambiguous and I could possibly get it wrong. I know you deserve better, but thank me. I'll play your voice memo now. [00:32:49] Speaker D: Hello, Jessica. Hello, Blake. This is Lara all the way from Germany, and I hope this reaches you in time. Usually I want to send stuff in, but then I'm always too late because of my ADHD. Hopefully this time I got it right. Yeah. So, first of all, thank you so much for the podcast. I learned so much over the years, and you bring so much joy to my life, and it became a ritual to listen to you guys on my way to work. And I know how much work it is to put it all together, the editing, the research, the clips. So, thank you so much for putting in all the effort and work. You truly do a tremendous job. So we talk about the downward spiral. Crazy that it's 30 years old. I wasn't even born when it came out. So a little brief history about me and my connection to Nine Inch Nails. I'm from Germany, as I said, and I am born in 98, so pretty late when it comes to getting a strong connection in the first wave of nine inch Nails. And also a little bit too young for the big blew up when with teeth came out. I found out about nine Inch Nails through Jane's addiction, which is even weirder, because Jane's addiction is a band that nobody knows here in Germany. I've never met a person that knows that this band exists, so I think that's even weirder. But I was a fan of Dave Navarro found out about Jane's addiction, loved Jane's addiction, found out they tour with Nine Inch Nails, checked out Nine Inch Nails, and my musical landscape opened up and changed. And it never was the same. It took me a while, though, to come through the downward spiral record. And I think the first time I listened to it, I was twelve years old and I didn't understand anything because my English wasn't as good as it is nowadays. I was a child and didn't understood anything about music or noise or storylines or plots or the english language. But what I knew is that directly I fell in love with that record. And luckily I had parents that were always open to all kinds of music. My mother, obviously growing up in the 80s, had no problem with the alternative music scene at the end of the early 90s. So she never stopped me from listening to that stuff. I think what amazes me the most about the downward spiral is that I've listened to their record well over 500 times. And still I feel like I find out little new things about each time I listen to this record. And it never bores me. I'm always excited and it's one of the few records that I would never skip a song and I would never stop listening to it. There is a habit I have that is, when I listen to that record and I'm in a car and I'm already home and the record isn't finished, I sit in the car and wait till the record is finished because I feel like I don't want to put any disrespect to that record. I don't know, it's just weird. Something probably I wouldn't do with the fragile because then I would probably freeze to death in winter. When I think about the downward spiral, it's always an emotionalist journey. And there were times in my life where I connected to that record more than I wanted to, maybe. And there was a time where I couldn't listen to that record because it brought so much pain to me. But at the end, nowadays, when I listen to it, it just is kind of like a bright moment for me because I realize how strong I became and that I overcome so much. And yeah, I love listening to this record nowadays as I did when I first listened to it when I was twelve years old. When it comes to favorite songs, I think I would not really be able to pick one. But a song that I really love, that I don't know, I don't think it's underappreciated, but I don't hear, like people say as their top mentioning songs when they talk about the downward spiral is the becoming. I love that song. I love all the noises in it. And it's sad it doesn't get played live really much anymore because I do really love that song a lot. And that and eraser are songs that I crank up loudly more than any other song on that record. What else can I say? Honestly, I don't know because there was a lot I wanted to say, but as I said ADHD, I didn't took notes. I did do this on the fly and should have probably because I'm forgetting everything I wanted to say, but I think I said the important stuff and yeah, just unbelievable how well this record holds up today. I think this record could come out today and it wouldn't sound really dated, which not many record achieve that. And I just love this record so much and I think it's one of the best records ever made and I think one of the most important records ever made. And yeah, I think that's all I can say in the moment about it. So thank you guys again for making this podcast and putting in all the work and can't wait for everything that's coming in the next months and years. And yeah, hopefully also we get some new halo at some point that we can talk up to date greetings and I hope you guys have a great time. Thank you again. [00:38:27] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:38:28] Speaker B: Thank you, Laura. If that was the right way. Oh, I hope that was the right way. [00:38:33] Speaker A: Yes, thank you very much, Laura. And as someone who also has adhd to a severe crippling degree, I know this was probably pretty hard to do, but I also scold myself for never taking notes. [00:38:52] Speaker B: No, that was great, though. [00:38:53] Speaker A: That was very great. [00:38:54] Speaker B: First of all, nobody worry about taking notes. Just whatever is on your mind is fine. And that was great. Great. Love your voice. [00:39:06] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:39:06] Speaker B: Love the accent. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Also, let me know if there's a word for the phenomena that I described earlier. [00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah, we said the Germans had a word for it, so maybe you could tell. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Maybe. Maybe there really is a word for it. [00:39:21] Speaker B: Cal sent something that is not a voice memo, but looks like a cover song that Cal recorded and said, hey, nailed crew. Yes, that includes you, Oscar. When you folks said you'd be talking about the 30th anniversary of March of the pigs, I realized I finally had a place to send this cover I made a few years ago that I never ended up releasing. I wanted to test out doing weird time signatures in logic. So of course my first thought was March of the pigs. It's a pretty rushed cover. But I had fun making it and thought I'd send it your way. And he signed off. Keep on slamming your bamboo, cow. [00:39:59] Speaker A: I'm always slamming my bamboo. I don't know about anyone else. [00:40:03] Speaker B: Yeah, same. Okay, let's listen to some of this. I like that. That's cool. I dig that. Those are good drum sounds and logic. [00:40:32] Speaker A: Just right up march. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Whoa. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Brain. Brain. I want sound like. [00:41:01] Speaker B: It'S pretty sick. It was so noisy, I couldn't even tell if it's, like, a real guitar or just noise. I think that's a good thing. Good bass symph too. Good vocal, too. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Doesn't it make you feel better? [00:41:31] Speaker B: And that's where the song ends. No, maybe we will stick the rest at the end if we have time, but, yeah, that's really cool. [00:41:40] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing. [00:41:41] Speaker B: That definitely sounds good. Great use of changing time signatures within logic. I know that can be tricky. All right, next one from Laura. Yeah, we know her name's pronounced Laura, right? Yes, we've met her. I hope it's Laura. [00:41:59] Speaker A: I'd be really embarrassed if it's LA. [00:42:02] Speaker B: Like Lara Croft, but that's Ellie R. Anyway. Yeah. [00:42:06] Speaker A: Hello, Oscar and Oscar subjects. That's me. [00:42:09] Speaker B: That's us. [00:42:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Here's what I have to say about the downward spiral and its influence on me. I became a fan in late six, early seven. [00:42:18] Speaker B: Hey, another six, baby. [00:42:20] Speaker A: Right around when music videos from year zero were coming out. That's pretty much how I found music I liked. I watched videos all the time. I did, too. The first two albums I bought were year zero and the downward spiral, likely the only two they had in stock. I was immediately in love with year zero. TDs took a lot longer to grow on. [00:42:40] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [00:42:41] Speaker A: I was 14 in 2007. [00:42:43] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, baby. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And not the credentialed musician I am today. That's true. [00:42:49] Speaker B: She really is. That's not, like, a fake brag thing. [00:42:52] Speaker A: No, she's legit. I was 14 in 2007 and not the credentialed musician I am today. So the noise and complexity of TDs was difficult for me to understand and appreciate. There were definitely songs I'd skipped back then that I'd never skip now. Sorry. Ruiner. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Oh, man. In my listen through today, Ruiner definitely was thinking, that's one of my favorites. Definitely at the top. [00:43:17] Speaker A: Anyway, even though it didn't hit me right away, TDS was an integral part of my development as a musician. The first time I was ever interested in the construction of a piece of music was listening to TDS. I think it was closer. I have a specific memory of being at school, probably seven or eight, listening on my headphones when I picked up something buried in the mix that I hadn't heard before. It was exhilarating. I was shocked that there could be so many layers to a piece of music. I loved music already, but after that, I had a need to pull it apart to figure out how it worked. A little icksy here. That moment put me on the path of becoming a composer. I don't know if I would have found that fire without Nin, especially tds. And now, 16 ish years later, I am the nerd trying to explain to non musicians why Johnny Cash removing the tritone from hurt was a big fucking mistake that undermined the integrity of the piece. They just look at me bewildered. [00:44:11] Speaker B: Whoa. Okay, that is a hot take. [00:44:12] Speaker A: Love you guys. Mostly Oscar. I mean, it's true. [00:44:16] Speaker B: Wow, thanks. We're second best. I agree. I actually agree. [00:44:23] Speaker A: What? [00:44:24] Speaker B: That Oscar is better than. [00:44:25] Speaker A: Oh. [00:44:26] Speaker B: Although you don't have to live with him and put up with his shit. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Also, he ate all of our ketchup chips, so I think we need some more. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Yes, and some. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Oscar's a bully and he eats all our canadian snacks. That's just me trying to get more canadian snacks. [00:44:41] Speaker B: Don't dox her now. People know she's from the country of Canada. Yeah. I think also closer with me was. I think it helped me learn to make music. When I was first making music as a WI 14 year old or whatever, I was layering things. I was, like, starting with one simple thing and then layering and layering and layering. And that's how things that I would make would go. Just experimenting with layers. [00:45:13] Speaker A: I still love listening to, like, I guess it's towards the end of closer. Just all the layers that pile on, pile on, pile on. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:23] Speaker A: I think that's amazing. [00:45:24] Speaker B: That stuck in my psyche and never left as far as, like, the template for making music. So cool. Thank you, Laura. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Thank you, Laura. [00:45:33] Speaker B: As always. Next one is from Katie. We know her. Thank you, Katie. Let's play it. [00:45:41] Speaker A: Hey, it's me, Katie. I'm a longtime follower and fan and friend. To be honest, I just wanted to give a little bit of an anecdote of my first experience with the downward spiral. So here it goes. While I was in my teenage years, I was heavy in my emo phase and exposing myself to all sorts of music courtesy of the game rock band. Some of my favorite bands to this day were discovered through that game, along with the vast majority of my music knowledge. Playing that game religiously with my best friend and her cousin every day after school became tradition. It wasn't long before I discovered the hand that feeds by Nine Inch nails. By playing that game nearly every day, I instantly fell in love with the groovy bass line and heavy instrumentals and so I started asking questions. Me and my friend's family began to discuss Trent and Nine Inch Nails as a whole. I made it a point to request we play that song every time we played rock band. I became enthralled. They became a little bit annoyed. I just couldn't get over how much that song resonated with me. So I bought the remix CD at a local record store. But it wasn't ever enough. A few years later, I finally bought the downward spiral on CD and heard closer for the first time. I was not prepared for that album to say the least. I remember it took me quite some time to listen to the entire album. I'm a very imaginative person and the themes of the album were obviously very heavy and dark, so it really took me a while, but I paced myself. Despite its self loathing themes, that album did and still does fuel my mind creatively. Since I can remember, my mind has always wandered in creative visuals and I always wanted to figure out a way to put them to use. Shortly after listening to what my mind would allow me to listen to from the downward spiral, I headed off to film school. I was looking forward to using my skills to direct music videos and the downward spiral was the core of my inspiration at the time. That being said, it wasn't until I was about halfway through my studies when I listened to that album the whole way through and I was mesmerized. I couldn't believe I was putting off listening to the entirety of this album for so long. I began fantasizing about what it would have been like to be able to attend that tour, or perhaps what it would be like to be a teenager during that era. I truly believe it is one of the greatest albums of all time. A ten out of ten, no skips, nothing comes close to it, nothing sounds like it. Just pure imaginative chaos of a plagued mind. If I could wish for anything, it would be the ability to listen to the album for the very first time again. P. S. Taylor Swift and Nine Inch Nails collab when very optimistic there. Anyways, I just wanted to give my experience. You guys are so awesome and keep up the great work. Thank you. [00:48:21] Speaker B: Thank you Katie. Yeah, the T. Swift Swift Piggy Collabo. I think could happen in an alternate universe? Maybe I don't hold out hope in this universe, but you never know. Nothing's out of the question. Maybe a 30th anniversary cover album is dropping. Surprise. Dropping. In a few days, and it'll be all the songs of tds, but, like, a different Artist is covering each one. Kind of like what they're doing with talking heads. [00:48:53] Speaker A: Yeah, the a 24 stop making sense project. [00:48:56] Speaker B: That would be wild. But, like, people, you wouldn't think. Like Taylor and Dua Lipa, since we know Reznor and his children love her. [00:49:07] Speaker A: What song would you want Dua to cover? Let her do closer, I think. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Because she can be so sultry. She's got the lower register. What would Taylor do? [00:49:18] Speaker A: Taylor. Hold on. I would like to hear Taylor do piggy. What? [00:49:27] Speaker B: That's funny. I'm trying to imagine it. March of the pigs. [00:49:32] Speaker A: I think Piggy would be better. [00:49:36] Speaker B: Big man with a. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Win. [00:49:40] Speaker B: Actually, I want that to happen. [00:49:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:42] Speaker B: Okay. [00:49:43] Speaker A: But, yeah. Thank you so much, Katie. Thank you, as always, sharing your experience. If you want to know what was like being a teenager in the 90s. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:52] Speaker A: I can tell you sometime. [00:49:56] Speaker B: Yeah. We'll have dm us things. [00:49:59] Speaker A: That's a whole, like, we can't get into. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't have time. Okay. Speaking of time, we better plow through. We got a lot here. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Okay, this next one is from Stacey. You might recognize Stacey if you follow nailed remixed on Instagram. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Yeah, she runs that account. [00:50:17] Speaker A: Stacey's the meme queen. [00:50:20] Speaker B: Great memes. Beautiful memes. [00:50:25] Speaker A: Damn it. Okay, so here are Stacey's thoughts. [00:50:31] Speaker E: Hi, Blake. Hi, Jessica. And extended nailed fam. It's Stacey, aka nailed remix here. Just sort of dropping in with my thoughts on tds. I thought it might be worthwhile because I expect that quite a few people here, especially even of my age, will have a different story to tell because they've been listening to tds for probably 30 years or slightly less, but a longer time than me. I didn't actually listen to tds until probably about seven years ago, after my son was born. It's sort of a bit of a strange journey in terms of getting into nin, quite frankly. For me, the first time I actually heard anything by them was probably listening to watching final destination and hearing into the void for the first time. [00:51:20] Speaker B: Nice. [00:51:21] Speaker E: Great song. I have no idea why I didn't look them up or get into them at that point, because I love that song still today. It's one of the best, but I didn't the next time I heard anything by Nin, I think, was probably when I was about 17 and probably like a lot of people, my introduction was actually hearing closer in a nightclub in Sheffield called corporation shout out to corporation Great Club, Stacey. Still love it. I haven't been back in a long time, for obvious reasons, but it was a fantastic time in my life. I loved going there. I didn't even know who sang the song. It was just the makeout song, pretty much. I remember having a good time and listening to that song and just loving it. I didn't find out who it was by until much later, and I actually can't remember when I discovered that it was Nine Inch Nails. It's such a fantastic song. It's so weird because it is so sexy, and it's such a weird song because it's just pure sex. I think there are a lot of sexy songs out there, but this is just one of those really raw songs about sex. And it's really kind of not dirty so much, but there's just something really kind of raw about it. It's kind of dirty, and I still love that aspect about that song. And on the surface, that's what it feels like. And I think that that really sort of beat really just connects with a lot of people, which is why people love it, even for its superficial kind of sex vibes. But it obviously has a much darker undertone, all about sort of self loathing. And it's such an od song. It's. It's both sexy and super depressing at the same time. It's Miguel and Tulio. [00:53:21] Speaker A: It's both. [00:53:23] Speaker E: But it's a great song, and it remains one of my favorites. But again, even at that point, I still didn't go out, find out what that was. When I went to university, I had my best friend there. She really loved Nine Inch Nails. Now, you would think at that point, that's when I would get into Nin. It wasn't. I know that she was super excited about getting with teeth, and we had a discussion, I remember once, and we were talking about who we thought were genius artists. She said, trent Reznor. And I'm just like, who's this guy? But she's right. He is a genius. And when I finally did listen to the downward spiral, I loved it. I don't know what compelled me to buy it after my son was born. Probably something to do with the fact that I was probably pretty depressed. I love my son with all my heart, but it was a really difficult time in my life. He didn't sleep and it was awful and I was so sleep deprived, and it was such an awful situation. And when I went back to work after my maternity leave, I needed new music for the car. I needed something to listen to on the journey in. I didn't have a fancy car. It didn't have streaming at that point, so cds. I needed something to listen to. And for some reason I just thought, I'm going to buy that. So I bought that. I bought the downward spiral, and I also bought with teeth. And I think around that same time, I also bought Taylor Swift 1989. So shout to Blake, another swifty ish. Well, I mean, I'm not as into her as you are, but I still love her music. That album's special to me, too. [00:55:08] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. [00:55:09] Speaker E: I love with teeth. And I think in the first part I liked it a little bit more than the downward spiral. It's just I wasn't as into such heavy stuff at that point. It was kind of scary, which sounds stupid, but it was a little scary to me. But I love it. I really do. I remember sort of sing shouting Mr. Self destruct in on to my journeys at work quite a lot. I was having such a hard time at work as well because I wasn't performing as well, being so exhausted all the time. But that album is just amazing. It is pure genius. It's something that I didn't really get to appreciate until I kind of latched on to being crazy about nine inch nails and becoming quite obsessed with it and watching Ixy's videos. Shout out to Ixy, who's also amazing, sort of explaining the musical aspects of those songs, and I don't really have a background in music at all. I just like listening to it. But having some of those things explained and me understanding why I loved so many parts of it, the soundscape alone, taking things from films. I absolutely love film and scores, really. Nin are the perfect band for me. It's just amazing. One of the other things I'd like to pull out about the downward spiral is just. And I'm sure many people have commented on it before, I actually think it's amazing that you can hear and feel the circular motion, the literal going round and round and round and down, and that sort of descent into hell. And I just think that that's amazing. Someone managed to do that in a way that isn't something that you're really actively listening for, but it's there if you look for it, and I think that's fantastic. And Ruiner as well. That guitar solo is just fantastic. It's something I wish more people knew about. It's one of the best guitar solos I've ever heard in my entire life. It's a cool part. It's one of those albums that I really love. And I used to listen to it to death for a long period of time. But it's one of those things that I do actually find hard to go back and listen to now, I think, because I had that such strong, sort of depressive period of listening to it. But honestly, I think it probably did help save me. It was a safe space for me to let out those feelings. And I'm so glad that it exists and I'm glad that many people find comfort in it. Anyway, this took a bit of a turn. I went to a bit down myself there, but I just so glad that this exists. And I'm so glad that I found all of the Nim fandom. And even more so that I found the nailed fandom. You guys are awesome. And I'm so glad and so lucky that I get to talk to you every day. Thank you. So bye. [00:58:16] Speaker B: Thank you, Stacey. And what she means by talk to us every day is in the discord. In the Patreon discord. She's not like coming to our house every day and talking to us, although. [00:58:31] Speaker A: That would be cool because you're a very nice person and your accent's very cool. So I would listen to anything that you say because I'm an American who is enchanted with accents. One more thing, Stacy. When you said it was scary, I was like, I can relate. I think this album came out when I was eleven. Actually, I wasn't even twelve yet, but I remember watching like March of the pigs and the closer video, et cetera. And I loved those songs. But I didn't actually buy the album and listen to it until probably. I was probably like in late 7th grade. So that would have been about a year later, it would have been like 95, because that's when I really got more into alt rock. But at first it was kind of scary, right? [00:59:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Like the closer video. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Well, this video was scary and hot. [00:59:23] Speaker B: You were scared by how horny you were. [00:59:27] Speaker A: I just mean, like, the harsh sounds and the way people. Those were not. [00:59:33] Speaker B: I mean, the screaming of the becoming. [00:59:36] Speaker A: Well, that was just not a genre that was in my house at all. Yeah, well, yeah, same industrial was not. [00:59:42] Speaker B: Allowed in this house. Not in this christian household. [00:59:45] Speaker A: It's not that it wasn't allowed. It just was not something that anybody listened to. Right? Like my mom listened to the adult contemporary station. My sister listened to the John Michael Montgomery's, and I listened to MTV pop. [00:59:57] Speaker B: And so it's like, if my parents heard, they didn't, but if they heard tds back then, I don't think their response would be like, oh, my. What's this offensive stuff? Their response would be, what the fuck is this? [01:00:12] Speaker A: This is weird. And I remember some of my first early listens to this album actually weren't by myself. They were at my friend Erica's house, like, listening to on her shitty boombox with the volume turned down quite a bit so her parents couldn't hear. I don't know, because it did seem scary. It seemed like something that parents would hate, so it was something that. It felt like it was this secret, holy object. [01:00:39] Speaker F: I don't know. [01:00:40] Speaker A: Sorry. [01:00:41] Speaker B: Something I just thought of because a lot of our younger fans got into this type of music from their parents who were into nin industrial, et cetera. Ask your parents what their parents thought of nin and that kind of ask your grandparents if you want to hear what our experience was. Like, that's how old we are. [01:01:09] Speaker A: I mean, honestly, by the time I was listening to it, my mom didn't really care. Like, what I listened to whenever I got into alt rock, she was like, whatever, I don't care. Although she didn't like Marilyn Manson and she never did. And maybe she was right. [01:01:22] Speaker B: He wasn't hot enough. [01:01:24] Speaker A: That's actually true. My mom. [01:01:25] Speaker B: That's how your mom operates. [01:01:27] Speaker A: That's how my mom operates. [01:01:28] Speaker B: I'm fully aware of that. That's why she liked hair bands. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And also probably why she won't watch Breaking Bad. She just doesn't think those actors are hot enough, I guess. I don't know. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Incorrect. Have you seen Bob Odenkirk? I mean, come on. Okay, we better keep moving, but thank you very much, Stacey. [01:01:52] Speaker A: Thank you, Stacey. I do want to read this little introduction to the voice message first, this is from Glenn. And Glenn wrote way too goddamn long, but everyone seems to like the long podcast, so screw it. [01:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:06] Speaker A: Okay, so here we go, right? [01:02:08] Speaker C: Hey there, Blake and Jessica. Happy leap day. Happy leap day. To all that celebrate. This is Glenn, here to talk a little about the downward spiral being somehow 30 goddamn years old. Although, for being fair, I definitely did not listen to it when it was released. I was seven when that thing came out, so I didn't listen to it, or any Nyan Chanel's record, for that matter, until a few years later. I'm pretty sure I listened to it in 98, when I was eleven, which, as we'll see, is still way too young to appreciate what's going on in that record. 98 is when my family first got cable and I could watch MTV and I started finding music that I actually liked. I don't remember really seeing any downward spiral stuff on MTV, but that tracks because it was 98. I remember watching MTV once with one of my older sisters who's like six years older than me, and seeing the music video for Nirvana. Smells like Teen spirit and I really liked that. And I knew my sister had the CD, so I asked if I could borrow it and she said no. And at the time I figured she was just being a mean, withholding older sister. But in retrospect, I can understand why she might have been hesitant to not just loan her little brother a CD that had a parental advisory sticker, but also a CD that just had a naked ass baby on it that might not have been a good look for her. So I don't really hold it against her anymore. But that one time of her refusing started me on like a years long habit of borrowing. Famously, this is an audio medium, so you can't see the giant air quotes I'm putting around borrowing there, borrowing cds from her when she wasn't home. I'd kind of sneak in there when she was out doing something else and maybe take one or two at a time and figured she wouldn't notice. She totally did notice, and just years later noted that it made her feel very cool. [01:04:15] Speaker B: She didn't mind. [01:04:17] Speaker C: And eventually that CD stealing involved me borrowing pretty hate machine broken and the downward spiral. So I first listened to basically all of those records at the same time, which is wild because those are very different records. And I wonder what I thought about that, all apparently being the same band. And for the most part I remember the downward spiral was hard. I remember liking it, but half the tracks being just being scary, legitimately, I thought they were scary. The intro to Mr. Self destruct is pretty disturbing. The screams in the becoming are extremely disturbing. So I really only listened to maybe half the record. And I really liked that. I really liked march the pigs, I really liked Ruiner. And it eternally bums me out that Trent doesn't seem to. But there were a lot of skips on me for that record for a long time. And I kind of gradually learned to appreciate the rest of the record over the next really several years, because even when I got older, and I probably would have liked the record front to back at that point, the fragile had come out. Other stuff had come out, and the stuff I was listening the hell out of was the newer stuff. And I wasn't really going back to the downward spiral, but gradually over the years, learning to appreciate some of those songs I didn't appreciate the first time, the becoming I really kind of learned to love because of the version on still that doesn't have the screams, and then I can actually appreciate the rest of the song and then can go back and listen to the original and like it. And Mr. Self destruct, I remember I might not have really had an aha moment on that until I saw them open with it in Amherst in 2006, because I remember thinking, whoa, I know that song. But that's way better than I remember it being. And so something about the live environment made it a lot more intense in a good way, and then I could go back to the record and appreciate that more. So it was like a long time. It was like maybe half a decade or more since I first heard the downward spiral, to me actually appreciating all the songs and then getting to a point where I could piece it all together and listen to the whole thing and kind of appreciate the whole thing. So, yeah, I'm really curious to hear other listeners experiences, and if there's anyone else who their age at the time of first hearing, it had drastically impacted their experience with them. That's all I got. Oh, good God. This is long. Sorry. As always, thanks for the awesome podcast and for harboring this awesome Petrone community and give Oscar a scratch for me. All right, bye bye. [01:07:13] Speaker B: Just like Jess says. [01:07:15] Speaker A: I just want to say that, Glenn, your sister is very cool. [01:07:18] Speaker B: And I was so cool. [01:07:19] Speaker A: I'd had a cool. Well, my sister was cool in different ways. I don't want to shit on my sister, but, man, if I was going to go in her room and steal cds, it would have been like, boy howdy and confederate railroad. [01:07:30] Speaker B: Not good stuff. [01:07:31] Speaker A: Would not have been nirvana. [01:07:34] Speaker B: We were not all lucky enough to have a cool sibling. [01:07:37] Speaker A: Blake, you were that cool sibling. [01:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah, but I wasn't cool. I was the older sibling, but not cool. I mean, I had cds and stuff, like cool cds. My sister wasn't interested. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't see your sister being. [01:07:51] Speaker B: Into, I guess, because I'm just so cool she can't keep up. [01:07:55] Speaker A: Can't. [01:07:56] Speaker B: Thank you, Glenn, though. [01:07:58] Speaker A: Thank you. [01:07:58] Speaker B: Always good to hear from Glenn. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Okay, next one. Blake, your turn. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Ooh. One from genetic. [01:08:04] Speaker A: Ready? [01:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah, let's play it. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Hey, nailed, fam. This is genetic reporting in for the downward spiral or anniversary episode. When I think about the downward spiral, I always flash back to a particular moment. In high school. I may have had a bit of an attitude when dealing with authority, and it occasionally got me into trouble. One of those times, I ended up with a Saturday detention. I had to show up early in the morning and stay there for about 6 hours looking like I was being productive. So of course, instead of doing something school related, I pulled up tds on my ipod and I wrote out all the lyrics in the back of one of my class notebooks. I listened to the album on repeat, letting the songs wash over me. And thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I still have the notebook in question, and that moment made me connect to it even more strongly. It was also one of the albums, along with Pink Floyds of the wall, that got me through my first serious breakup in my senior year of high school. It may not be my favorite in an album, but it'll always have a special place in my heart. All right, thank you for listening. Thank you, Jeanette. [01:09:09] Speaker B: Thank you. Short and sweet, that one. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I used to do that in class and look like I was taking notes, but really I would just be writing down lyrics to songs because I have the attention span of a goldfish. [01:09:22] Speaker B: I don't know, I was like, imagine having an ipod in detention. Like, the luxury. But I guess we had disc mans and stuff, but they were a little harder to hide, is the thing. And also, I feel like teachers in our time were way more strict about not letting you have stuff. And now they've given up. [01:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah, they've definitely given up because when I was in high school, if you had, like, your disc men out in class, you'd get in trouble. It would be confiscated. [01:09:53] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:54] Speaker A: But anyway. [01:09:56] Speaker B: Okay, the next one. Is it Cassidy? [01:09:59] Speaker A: Cassidy? Okay, so this is from Cassidy. Hi. Justin Blake. I've been a listener since around February of 2022. I think catching up on episodes when I first started listening got me through multiple all nighters I had to spend staring at a computer screen working on graphic design projects. I guess you could say graphic design is your passion, which I'm super grateful for. I've been a patron since June of 2022, but for some reason haven't ever really interacted with anyone yet, even though I've really wanted to. Maybe writing this is a good start. You should join us in the discord. [01:10:32] Speaker B: It is a good start, though. [01:10:34] Speaker A: Yes. I had always known of Nine Inch Nails and Trent, but I never got any further than that until the summer of 2021. A little late to the party, but I was negative six when tds was released. So better late than never, I guess. Yes, I've been late to many parties I've realized in my life, but yeah. Anyway, I was entering into my last year of college and heard head like a hole on the radio. I knew the song and had heard it before, but for some reason this time it just hit different. After that, I was regularly listening to a nin essentials playlist. The song only immediately caught my attention. It was almost spot on to the way I was feeling at the time. I guess I always feel that way, but around this time in my life it was especially heightened from there. I basically worked my way through albums in order and watched hours and hours of any and all the videos I could find of or about nin. Woodstock, closure, music videos, interviews, you name it. I was exclusively listening to nin for almost a year straight. Whoa, man. [01:11:34] Speaker B: Us too. [01:11:35] Speaker A: Well, yeah. But also, can you imagine, like when I was younger and crushing on Gavin Rothdale, can you imagine what I would have done if I'd had the Internet? I'd have been like a Gavin Rothelle Tumblr girl accounts, Stan Twitter. Yeah, I would just be going nuts. Anyway, I was in a sculpture class the same time I had started really getting into tds. It inspired some interesting work, like this giant, over three foot tall rotting tooth. I attached some photos of it to this email if you're curious. I am. Russell Mills'artwork created for the album was also a big source of inspiration for me. I even talked about his work in my artist talk presentation for my senior exhibition. The downward spiral means so much to me. I'm not the best with words, but the only way I can try to explain is that the sounds and atmosphere is the best translation to the way it feels inside my head. I don't even know. Hearing you guys go into detail about tds on the pod episodes led me to appreciate it that much more. Some songs that mean a lot to me have to be reptile. The becoming. I do not want this and the downward spiral track. As soon as I heard reptile for the first time, I was amazed. It's larger than life. You feel like you've been catapulted into a completely different world. I love that every time I listen to tds, I'm able to pick out some sound that I've never noticed before. It accompanied me into a strange transitional period in my life where I was lonely, burnt out from schoolwork, and in an okay what now? Sort of place. It opened up this whole community of smart, funny, and interesting, like minded people. I was able to go to the nin fan date, the Rock and Roll hall of Fame with my sister the day before the Cleveland show last year. I don't know anyone else that likes Nin around me, and it felt so good to be surrounded by so many other fans that day. I will never forget it. That's so cool. [01:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:21] Speaker A: I really appreciate all the research and effort you both put into this. It's such a wonderful journey to be able to go on with you both as well as everyone else listening along. It's just so special to me. Side note, I started reading the 33 and a third of pretty hate machine after you guys mentioned it in one of the first episodes. The author mentioned that they conducted their interviews at the Denny's. It's actually right down the street from my house in Youngstown, Ohio. [01:13:42] Speaker B: Whoa. [01:13:42] Speaker A: It was kind of strange reading about the place where you live as the backdrop for the creation of pretty hate machine. Lol. [01:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah, got a lot of Ohioans writing in, too. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah, kind of makes sense. This is probably too long to read for everyone, but thanks for reading and for all you guys do. Also, Taurus gang, May 11. [01:14:01] Speaker B: 11Th. You're the 13th. What's Trent again? [01:14:04] Speaker A: 17Th. It's sad that I know that you should. Yeah. Okay, hold on. [01:14:09] Speaker B: So this is giant tooth is freaking me out. So big. It's so rotting. [01:14:15] Speaker A: It's really cool. [01:14:16] Speaker B: It really does evoke Russell Mills. [01:14:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see the inspiration, but it is. [01:14:23] Speaker B: It's so gnarly. [01:14:24] Speaker A: Pretty amazing. I need to know more about what materials were used. Yeah, this is really cool. [01:14:29] Speaker B: Is it paper machete? Tell us more about it. [01:14:33] Speaker A: Actually, it looks like a tooth I had pulled recently. I'm just kidding. [01:14:36] Speaker B: Looks like my teeth is all the candy I eat. [01:14:40] Speaker A: Thank you, Cassidy. Thanks for sharing your artwork. That's really. [01:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Ah, this one's from our friend damage Inc. Okay. Hello, Blake and Jessica. Damage, Inc. Jared. Pronounced like the jewelry store. Lol. Is it Jared? [01:14:59] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:15:00] Speaker B: Is that the jewelry store? How do you not know it? [01:15:04] Speaker A: I know every Jared. [01:15:06] Speaker B: Every J. O begins with Jared. No, I don't want to say that. This guy's name. Okay. Being subscribed to this lovely podcast for a year. I want to say first, thank you guys for being the absolute coolest podcast ever. Aw, no way. That's too flattering. The nailed family is honestly like one of my homes away from home at this point, and I'm happy to be a part of this journey now. With that out of the way, I want to talk about my experience with TDs. Being a nin fan for at the time, two years, I had loved everything I had listened to up to that point. But something was off. I had never listened to tds at all. Weird, right? Yep. It took me so long to listen to this album. Namely because, I'll admit, I was afraid to dwell into whatever Trent had immortalized onto this record. Just the name of the album alone told me that this was not an album to just put on. You need to enter the album, digest it, let the record suck you into its universe and give you a train ride through its void. Well, damn, that's a Mouthful. Is that all? I promised to myself that if I ever put on this record for the first time, I better have listened to it with as much depth as possible. No distractions, no bullshit. So the summer of 2022, I got a copy of tds on dual disc. Having a surround sound system, I found this as the perfect opportunity to listen to the album. One of the ways Resner wanted it to. Hey, a man after my own heart. That's how I like to listen. It's 02:00 a.m. On a Saturday night. Nobody at the house except me. Nobody worrying about noise. Thank goodness I popped the disc in. Just the menu itself gave me chills immediately. It's a good menu. 60 minutes go by and I was in a state of shock of what I had just listened to. It had so many things thrown at me, but as hurt ended, I felt like a swap of emotions. Not saying it's a bad album, but it really made me ask questions and feel like crap after. And at the same time, I really felt thankful specifically for Trent to be around. To this day, I don't think there is another album out there that can encapsulate what Trent had written even 30 years ago. The record deserves all the love it gets, and even if I don't see myself listening to it a lot, compared to his other works, it's an absolute essential piece to the Nin puzzle. The end definitely is. Thank you, Jared, for that one. Was a bit different in that it's not totally glowing about tds. It's not the favorite album in this case, so some people see it differently. I think genetic, but still essential. Yeah. [01:17:54] Speaker A: Said it wasn't. [01:17:55] Speaker B: It's not everyone's top like it is mine. [01:17:58] Speaker A: I thought your top was my topic. [01:18:00] Speaker B: Fragile, right? But if I couldn't pick the fragile and if I had to pick a. [01:18:03] Speaker A: Single, but if I had to pick a bottom, it would be tedious. [01:18:07] Speaker B: What? [01:18:08] Speaker A: I don't know. All right, so our next entry is from Emmanuel. Emmanuel sent a voice note. [01:18:18] Speaker F: Hi, my name is Emmanuel Luna from Denver, Colorado, and I just wanted to say how much the downward spiral means to me. There's a quote I recently read that said, music is so influential on the brain that the type you listen to actually has the ability to change the way you think and look at the world. In that sense, the downward spiral has grown considerably in my mind since hearing it for the first time in middle school. The album originally came out when I was six years old, but I didn't discover nine Inch nails until I was about ten. My parents divorced when I was around seven years old and living in two households. One of my older cousins was living in the basement of my dad's house. One night after school we came home and there was a CD playing the most hypnotic and strange music that I've ever heard in the empty house. And my cousin Michael came back maybe ten minutes after we got home with his group of friends and I asked him, what was that music? He said it was nine inch nails in the most matter of fact, nonchalant way. And I remember that name stayed as a check mark in my brain to remember and explore further. In 6th grade, I had been gifted a portable cassette player with a built in FM radio, and I started having my own connection to music. One day I heard the song hurt and it was different than most of the music they regularly played, and it made me feel sad and understood in a way that I hadn't yet experienced musically. I took the bus to my local used CD store and purchased the downward spiral without parental assistance. I remember sitting in my room reading the lyrics booklet and playing the album as loud as I possibly could, my mom said. She put her ears to the door and paraphrase her, she thought I was listening to songs encouraging me to kill myself. Oh God, I didn't feel that way listening to the music. It was like planting a seed that helped me fill the world in a new way. I didn't understand all the melodies yet, but the more I listened to it, the more it grew with me and it's evolved to the point where I've been listening to this album for over 23 years and I still gain new feelings and emotions hearing it. I love how intricately layered and subliminally thoughtful the production is. My mom was excessively religious and started reading the lyrics and judgment without knowing the musical content. Around the time the downward Spiral deluxe edition came out, I asked her to buy the surround sound version for me. She said she would buy it, but requested that she would listen to the whole album with me, and for some reason that wasn't acceptable to me, I didn't think that she would get it. So I asked her to buy me a dvd of Shaun of the Dead instead, and I bought the downward Spiral deluxe edition on my own. My father was a keyboard player and I ended up taking up synthesizer in high school, and the downward spiral was a mainstay in inspiring me and giving me a sense of peace when I couldn't connect with my classmates. I even found some community online and a generous person on the nailed online message board helped me purchase a ticket to with teeth Club tour because my mom wouldn't give me access to her debit card. When the ticket came in the mail, I was alone at home. I ran around the house and went straight into the basement to listen to the downward spiral and scream along, very excited that I'd be able to experience this music live. It was my first solo concert experience. Five months later, I even got to take my dad to see Nine Inch Nails at the Pepsi center. In 2013, I had open heart surgery and it was an emotionally fraud experience. My mom, dad, and girlfriend traveled with me to Minnesota, and I was finally able to share the musical connection with my mother. After recovering and surviving the surgery, my mom danced to Nine Inch Nails and she said she didn't realize how good Trent's music was all this time. Sadly, we lost my little brother to suicide at the end of July 2023. And the downward spiral is a work of art that was a little challenging to revisit, to be honest with you. But it's since been something that has stuck in my mind. It has helped me to grieve, has helped me to process. It has inspired me musically. My little brother who passed away, he knew how big Nine Inch Nails was to my life. And before he passed away, he gave me a mug that had the first Nine Inch Nails show that I went to poster that he had printed on there, and it had a picture of my band that I was in called waiting room, and it had a picture of Nine Inch Nails from the Woodstock performance. And it said, the music in you will never die. So this album just means so much to me from a personal level. It's been in my life for over 23 years, and I have no doubts that I'll still be finding new things to pick apart and listen. So I thank nailed podcast for giving me that deeper dive into this album that means so much to me. Thank you so much. [01:23:16] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:23:17] Speaker A: Thank you, Emmanuel. Thank you for sharing. [01:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah, so sorry. That sounds really tough. So super sorry to hear that. But really good. Really good voice memo there. [01:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm glad you had this to help you with it, to help you get through. [01:23:36] Speaker B: I'm glad it helped and to continue. [01:23:38] Speaker A: To process what happened, for sure. [01:23:43] Speaker B: I don't know what that's like, but damn. Yeah. Don't even know what to say, but thank you very much, Emmanuel. Should we move on? [01:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:56] Speaker B: Do our next one from Jess. Not this Jess, not me. [01:24:00] Speaker A: The other is we have a Jess number two. This is just number three. [01:24:06] Speaker B: I don't want to like. Okay. [01:24:08] Speaker A: As I always say, everyone's number one in my. [01:24:13] Speaker B: Have. [01:24:13] Speaker A: I'm not ranking Jessica's. I just want everyone. [01:24:15] Speaker B: I'm not either, but I think I legally have to say you're number one in my heart because I'm married to you. [01:24:21] Speaker A: I mean, it would be weird if you picked Jess number two because you don't even know her. [01:24:25] Speaker B: That would be. Yeah. [01:24:28] Speaker A: Okay. So anyway, Jess, here we go. Hello, Blake, Jessica, Oscar, and fellow pickies. My name is Jess, and I live in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and I would love to share my thoughts on Nin's downward spiral. But before I share, when I first discovered nail pod, I was only a casual nin listener, only being exposed to radio singles and what djs played on goth nights. Now I'm a dedicated listener and patreon subscriber. I have fully immersed myself into each halo. Deep dive. Blake and Jessica, your episodes are a labor of love and thoroughly researched. I still have a lot more halos to explore, but for now, I'm following along with each episode. Now my thoughts on the downward spiral. To me, it's a concept album about mental illness and the decay of one's mental faculties. Track one, the narrator tells the listener exactly who he is and what his intentions are. The album unfolds into a disturbing downfall of self destruction, religion, impulse behaviors with sex, drugs and violence, and disintegrating into the void. A few small details I noticed while listening were homages to the exorcist and the cure. The listener is addressed as pig or piggies. Just like when Reagan became possessed, she was called a sow. And in the cures, the top album, Robert Smith addresses himself as piggy in the song Piggy in the mirror. Another was the album's sound design. I believe it was Trent's homage to the cure's dark and nightmarish auditory masterpiece, pornography. As the downward spiral comes to its resolution, the narrator exposes his mental illness. And in the title track, I can hear hints of the cure's signature disintegration chords. This album is bleak, desolate, and gives a listener no hope. That's why it is brilliantly written and composed, just like the cure's pornography. To disintegration. There wouldn't be the fragile without the downward spiral. [01:26:35] Speaker B: Thank you. Well, we know he liked the cure. We know they were an inspiration, so that's a fact. I like that tidbit there. I'd never thought of that. And I hadn't made it the Exorcist connection either. That's kind of cool to think about. [01:26:53] Speaker A: I do know that Jess is a big cure fan. [01:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I've actually heard a little bit of a Cure podcast. There is a cure podcast. And I heard. I heard Jessica send a voice memo into that one, and I was like, well, we have to have that, too. So I really appreciate you taking the time to also send one into us. [01:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And maybe someday we'll actually meet you because you're. [01:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Arkansas is close to us for people not from around. Yeah, she's relatively close, which is cool. [01:27:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's have a day at Crystal Bridges. Okay. [01:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, we need more nailed people, like, in the area. Why are they all so far? [01:27:37] Speaker A: If any of you are St. Louis nailed listeners, we'll be there at the end of March for health. [01:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah, mini meetup. For real. We'll be. Yeah, stl late march. [01:27:50] Speaker A: Get Johnny. Health there, too. [01:27:51] Speaker B: Health show. Yeah, get johnny. I know there are some St. Louis people and Casey as well. This one's from Sahan. Thank you, sahan. Let's play it. [01:28:04] Speaker G: Hey, blake and Jess. It's sahan, and it's my turn to weigh in on the 30th anniversary of the downward spiral. And before I even talk about that record, it's such a 1994 record. A lot of people have been talking about the music of 1994, jess, you've been talking about it a lot, and I think it might be the best year for music in 1994. There was a lot of stuff that was really interesting and really creative and really artful from that year. I think a lot of artists got signed early on, 91, 92, 93 as a result of the things that were getting popular at that time. And this was their time to show everyone what they'd been working on. And you got a lot of records that they did surprisingly well despite adopting this approach of, like, art, first, product second, you think of records like Mela gold by Beck or Porter's head's dummy record. But I can't think of another record that kind of exemplifies this approach as much as the downward spiral. You just look at the album artwork, the. The album title, and the band name is not that big. There's no song track listings on the back. There's no pictures of the band inside. There's like three booklets. It's not exactly easy to access, both literally and figuratively. It doesn't spell it out for the listener. It doesn't really do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. It requires a lot of a listener to understand. And that alone is just like, yeah, there it is. They just wanted to make a great piece of art first. Or none of the things that were singles with maybe with the exception of hurt, sort of. I guess none of them scream like pick me, I'm a hit single. March of the Pigs is in weird ass time. Signature closer has tons of curse words, and the last half of the song is instrumental. And the video is all bizarre. And yet, despite all these things that were maybe in the eyes of some a r person or label exec, were, like, not commercial, it succeeded despite those things. This record succeeded because of what it was and not because of what it wasn't. And for me personally as a listener, I got into that record when I was nine, when it came out so early, for me personally as a listener, I was able to discover a lot of things. And looking back on it now, that's how I discovered the concept of texture in music. I knew about rhythm and I knew about melody, but that was the first time I heard things that were working on a textural level, and that went on to get me into all different types of music and recognize that concept in other types of music. Ultimately, I don't want to say that they owe their career to it, but I do think that they owe their longevity to it. I think it's like, really the bleach to never mind jump for nyesh Nails, pretty hate machine being bleach, downward spiral being never mind. It's that big of a jump for them. And they made a record of such quality that I think it allowed them to do whatever they wanted following because it provided them with a fan base that was receptive towards what they were doing and loved them so much and would stick with them and has stuck with them for years to come. It's not a 90s record. It's not like a dated record. It still sounds good today. It's 30 years later, and we're still talking about it. You guys are still talking about it on a podcast that you devoted entirely to this band. I think that sort of longevity they owe to that record. There's so many things that happened around the time of this record or after this record that were so huge at the time. And I don't think there's nearly as big of a level of enthusiasm for those artists as there is Nine Inch Nails. There might be a limp Bizkit podcast, I don't know. But they just have this fan base that is so, they just adore them so much. I speak for them, you guys speak for them. And thank you for being one of us and providing us with so much interesting and useful and just enjoyable information and just helping us learn so much about this band that we love so much. So thanks for doing what you do. Happy 30th of downward spiral. [01:32:03] Speaker B: Thank you. Happy 30th to you, too. Thanks, Sahan. Very good insights, especially about the year 1994 and what was brewing back in those early to mid ninety s. I. [01:32:18] Speaker A: Have some theories too about why 94 maybe was also a great year and had some seminal alt rock masterpieces that I've been cooking up. And one is just, I've actually been talking about it with Sahan a little bit, but one of my thoughts was that it was just kind of a, I don't know, this is going to take forever. So never mind. [01:32:44] Speaker B: Well, yeah, never mind was a big part of it. [01:32:49] Speaker A: Thank you so much for all your insights on. [01:32:51] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [01:32:53] Speaker A: When were you going to start our one hit wonder 90s podcast? That's what I want to know. I just want to sit and talk about dishwalla with somebody. [01:33:01] Speaker B: Okay, we're getting close to the end. [01:33:05] Speaker A: I can't believe it. Okay, so this next one is from Christian, one of our christians. Sorry, we have a couple, but I believe this is infinite spiral on Instagram. [01:33:20] Speaker B: Yes. [01:33:21] Speaker A: And in discord. And here's their note. [01:33:23] Speaker H: Hi, this is Christian and I wanted to give my thoughts and my memories that I've had surrounding the album, the downward spiral and what it means to me as a nine Inch Nells fan who has been listening to nine inchnels for over 15 years. There's just a lot of things I want to say and it probably may not be the best way I could articulate it, but going to do the best I can. I felt like this album at the time, whenever I was in middle school from 7th to 8th grade, and listening to this album back in 2009, 2012, this was like a perfect time for me to listen to this album because I was going through a lot of stuff that most teenagers always go through. They have so much angst and anger, anxiety from the stresses in life, from their parents to the family, and having to deal with bullies in school, and the stresses of having to deal with schoolwork and homework and at least like my perspective, because wasn't doing the best in school anyways. This album just came out at a perfect time when I was going through all that, and it just comforted me in the times when I really needed it. It's just the way Trent just conveys the lyrics and the songs that songs like Mr. Self destruct, heresy, ruiner, the becoming, I do not want this eraser, and of course, the downward spiral title track. There's just layers upon layers of how the instrumentation is just structured for each song. Anytime I would just listen to a song, I just felt like I was able to discover something new that I didn't hear before. And even to this day, I still rediscover a lot of the layers and the music, the instrumentation, how Trent was able to create this chaotic sense of white noise that this album just conveys. And Trent is just able to write these great lyrics and just sing his heart out into these lyrics and just scream to the white noise and just have this ball of energy just combined of the stuff that I felt like. It was just able to describe how I was feeling back when I was a teenager. And of course now at the time when I was going through my twenty s, and of course, now where I am age 29, but as I said, this album was able to help me cope through a lot of hardships that I faced throughout my life. And Trent was able to help me cope with a lot of things. And it was just a way to help me understand that I could probably make it out through a lot of these hard times that I would deal with. And sure enough, I did survive a lot of the hard times, but it helped me understand that I wasn't the only one going through the things that I was going through. And it just helped me make me feel good about myself, that there's other fans out there like me, or just other people in general who feel the same way. And of course, Trent himself, who was able to write all these songs and able to give those like us a voice. So I really got to thank him for creating this album and of course, thank all the people involved like flood to help produce this album. It's a phenomenal album and still sounds good as it was whenever I first heard, and still sounds just as if not better to this day. So it's just crazy to think that this album is now 30 years old, and for me, it is aged perfectly, and it's still an album that I'll never get tired of. So that's what I got to say about the downward spiral. [01:38:16] Speaker A: Thank you, christian. [01:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. [01:38:19] Speaker A: I know how, you know, it's an important and good and timeless album is people who were born the year or around the year it was released are discovering it later and loving it as much as someone who discovered it in 1994 did. Right. [01:38:40] Speaker B: That's how you know it's not something that's going to be forgotten about, I guess. [01:38:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, no one out here is talking about boy howdy. Is that my second boy howdy reference? [01:38:53] Speaker B: Probably. I don't actually know what you're referring. Oh, that's another 1994 country album. [01:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:39:01] Speaker B: Most of the forgotten projects we don't remember the names of. [01:39:06] Speaker A: I was just trying to think of stuff from 94, and even though I've listened to so much, I'm like, blanking. Yeah, it's the worst. All right, blake, you want to read the last one? [01:39:15] Speaker B: Our last one of the night before we go 3 hours with this is from Tim. Thank you, Tim. Jess, blake, and Oscar. Nothing like a 30th anniversary to remind us of our actual age and how old we've gotten. Of course, if you think about it, the good part is 30 years ago, I figured I'd be dead by 30, and that was a pretty common thought with the crew I hung around. I was 20 in 1994 listening to classic metal, motley crue, metallica, iron maiden, but also with a pop side. I loved Huey Lewis in the news. Still do. [01:39:51] Speaker A: That was my sister's first concert. [01:39:52] Speaker B: Whoa. She's so cool. [01:39:54] Speaker A: I know. [01:39:54] Speaker B: And I still wasn't sure about pearl jams. Ten. My concert experience at the time was two shows. George Michael's faith tour at MSG with mom and striper at Radio City Music hall. The seven seven seven tour. I didn't know they had a tour called seven seven seven. That's funny, Blake. Insert canned laughter here. I went to the Roseland ballroom with a friend of mine to see Nine Inch Nails, who were touring a new album. I had heard their previous stuff, broken, was amazing with a hint of strange. Remember, I was a metal guy, and at the time, our tastes were one way. There was no listening to metal and rap. You liked one or the other until they invented rap metal. I guess the judgment night soundtrack would start to change all that. The guitar and riffs on Broken were outstanding. But what were all those strange noises? Computers? Good question. Pretty hate machine, on the other hand, started out great, with head like a hole and terrible lie. What the hell was track three? Is he rapping? No thanks. Going into the show, I had heard TDs and there was some cool stuff on it. The computers were still weird, though. Got to give synthesizers a chance, man. Needless to say, it was a good show, and my exploration of nin began. After that, TDs and broken became daily occurrences. PHM was still the red headed stepchild. Sure enough, TDs would be back in New York a little while later playing the greatest theater on earth. 8th row. Best seats I ever had until 2018, when I had fourth row at King's Theater. Jim Row Circus was a trip. I didn't mind Marilyn Manson. I despise them now. And when the lights went out for the nails and the pounding started for Mr. Self destruct, my life was changed forever. The intensity, the sound, the visuals of eraser and hurt blew me away. Every day I would listen to TDs, usually during school hours, at a friend's, or in my room alone late at night. I can't say why it resonated with me so much. I had a good upbringing, no tragedies yet. My parents were still married. And here's this guy at the end of his rope, saying things so personal, a long way away from shouting at the devil or running to the hills. Musically, I had never heard anything like it, and my entire taste of music would shift. I started listening to ministry and Depeche mode. I'm sure there were more, but that damn memory thing when you get older. I wonder if he was listening to kill motherfucking Depeche mode. What I also loved was I had no idea what the band looked like. It was such a departure from the hair metal always on the camera shit, and I loved it. Yeah, it's a good point. We didn't have cable for two reasons. My dad didn't want to pay for tv and he didn't want the cable company to drill a hole in the house. [01:42:45] Speaker A: Good reasoning. [01:42:47] Speaker B: I want to know what his thoughts on you, like pinning posters to the wall was. TDs also helped me keep an open mind about all music. I would go back to Pearl jams ten and realize it was an outstanding album. I started listening to David Bowie and delved into classic rock. It just opened my mind so much. I would listen to it through the rest of the 90s further down as well. If you would have told me at the end of the Inch Nails follow up would be my favorite album of all time. I would not have believed you, but TDs really opened my music universe for me. I would also see hundreds of shows during that decade from any band playing in New York. Tds live was such an experience. I was trying my best to relive it. There is nothing better than live music. And I learned Nin was and always will be the best live man I've ever seen. In closing, I can no longer listen to big man with a gun. That's always a skip for me. But the album is and always will be the most important one in my life. Tim P. S. It's Kflay weekend this weekend. Two nights at the Bowery ballroom. I think the capacity is 600. Hey, I've been there. That's pretty small. I need both of your shirt sizes or else I'm going to guesstimate. And we all know boys don't guess well. Yeah, they do that boy math. Pps. I don't mean to bust balls. I know everything takes time, but can we have an update on our Oscar Shirts at the merch store? Yes, I still do really want to make an Oscar shirt and put it out there. So stay tuned on just. It takes a while to get stuff done and when you start putting out too many merch items, people stop buying them because you can't expect people to always be buying new things except for Oscar stuff because I bet people would buy an Oscar thing. I bet. [01:44:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:42] Speaker B: I don't know. It was the K flay shirt question. Serious? [01:44:46] Speaker A: I think so. Tim's always threatening me with k flare. [01:44:49] Speaker B: No gifts required for done. [01:44:52] Speaker A: By the way, that made it sound bad. [01:44:54] Speaker B: Don't threaten me with gifts. [01:44:56] Speaker A: No, that's not what I meant. [01:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, no gifts required. But anyway, K flay is cool. Thank you, Tim, as always. [01:45:06] Speaker A: Yes, thank you, Tim. Yeah, my nieces are pretty cool. They listen to K Flay. [01:45:10] Speaker B: Oh, do they? [01:45:11] Speaker A: That's how I heard of K Flay is because I got in the car one day and they were all singing blood in the cut. [01:45:15] Speaker B: Right? [01:45:16] Speaker A: I think she was like four and just jamming to that song. Four or five. [01:45:21] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a good song. [01:45:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:45:22] Speaker B: Do we have anything else? [01:45:24] Speaker A: Let me double check and make sure we didn't miss anyone. [01:45:27] Speaker B: And if we did miss anyone, if an email got lost or some email has gone to spam, it's happened before. I'm very sorry if we missed you. [01:45:35] Speaker A: I think we got everybody. I just want to say a couple of things though about this album before we leave number one. Happy 30th. But, yeah, this album has definitely changed my life in a lot of ways. It's always there when I need it the most, which has happened, unfortunately, too much in the past, like, five years. Anyway, glad I have this album. But also just during the pandemic, when I kind of went back on my deep Nine Inch Nails Journey and was listening to the halos that I had skipped. And when I came back to this one, this one was, well, I've always kind of come back to it. It's one of my favorite albums. But this became something I listened to a lot during the pandemic. It really helped me a lot, and it kind of inspired this podcast. [01:46:35] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [01:46:36] Speaker A: Blake and I would listen to it, talk about it. [01:46:42] Speaker B: It's like we were practicing for podcast. [01:46:45] Speaker A: And after we put it out in the world, I didn't think that very many people would listen. And so I'm always kind of surprised when I realize people are listening, I guess. But when I say this album has changed my life, it really has, because of sharing our love for this album and our experiences with it and our knowledge that we have acquired about it has led to me becoming friends with so many people, whether I've met you in real life or not, whether we just kind of message and talk about music, or if I've met you at a nine Inch nail show, or if we met up again at a different show or even just talking to people in discord, like, I've met so many people, and everyone's been so kind, and I honestly don't know what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this right now or what the past few years would have been like without this podcast and without meeting a lot of you and becoming friends with you. [01:47:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we'd probably be more shut ins than we are now, I'd imagine. [01:47:54] Speaker A: Probably so. And I think it also has strengthened our relationship. I feel like in the pandemic, there was some strain for a lot of relationships, not just ours. [01:48:07] Speaker B: Not everyone survived it. So we were some of the lucky ones. I mean, survived it literally, sadly. And not all relationships survived. [01:48:20] Speaker A: This. As podcast recording and prepping this podcast has really brought me and Blake closer, I feel like. And closer. [01:48:29] Speaker B: Nice. [01:48:30] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's been an amazing experience. I mean, we interviewed Charlie Klauser. How weird is that? [01:48:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy weird. I don't know why it happened. [01:48:40] Speaker A: I don't either. But, yeah, I want to thank everyone for going on this journey with us and for sharing your thoughts and feelings about this album. I wish I had taken notes. [01:48:54] Speaker B: Hush, Oscar. [01:48:55] Speaker A: The ADHD thing. I wish I'd written down everything I wanted to say, but I didn't. [01:49:00] Speaker B: No, don't worry about that, because I'm glad that we could give the community a chance to do the talking this time. I like that. I like that we're doing that for once. You know what I mean? [01:49:16] Speaker A: Oh, no, I totally do. I just felt like wrapping this up. I should say a few words. No, that's why I wasn't trying to hog time from anyone or anything. [01:49:26] Speaker B: No. But I'm grateful that the community could do most of the talking for us, and I don't want to prolong it, but I guess I'll just say it's an album. A little while after we stopped talking about this album not that long ago, but still coming back to it. I still think it's an album for the musical canon of all time. There was never an album like it before it came, and there hasn't been an album like it since. And even nine Inch Nails have not done an album like it since at all. It's a singular thing, and I really appreciate that, that it's wholly unique in a really amazing way. It's weird in the best way. [01:50:27] Speaker A: It's scary in the best. [01:50:28] Speaker B: Scary. It's layered and textured. I liked Sahan's use of the word texture because that's extremely important to this record. I still think Chris Rinna might be to thank for a lot of that found footage from movies and stuff. Vhs tapes layered in there. So thank you, Verna, and thank you, Trent. And awesome album. [01:50:56] Speaker A: Ten out of ten, no notes. [01:50:58] Speaker B: 30 out of 30. [01:51:00] Speaker A: Oh, that was better. [01:51:01] Speaker B: What? No, it's stupid. Doesn't mean anything. [01:51:05] Speaker A: Happy 30th tds. You're looking great. You're sounding great. [01:51:09] Speaker B: 30 and flirty and thriving. [01:51:11] Speaker A: That's right. [01:51:12] Speaker B: Downward spiral right now. [01:51:14] Speaker A: I hope you have a great birthday. [01:51:17] Speaker B: Go out, celebrate, get some drinks with the girls. [01:51:20] Speaker A: Yeah, have a nice brunch. [01:51:24] Speaker B: Can we go out on the rest of that march of the pigs cover? [01:51:28] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it. Okay. All right. [01:51:31] Speaker B: We've gone way too long. Bye, everyone. We love you. [01:51:33] Speaker A: Bye. [01:51:34] Speaker B: Didn't that make you feel better? [01:51:41] Speaker A: I show all that you take. Doesn't it make you feel better? Pick. Have one tonight. They can all sleep soundly and everything. All right.