NIN’s The Downward Spiral Turns 20 Today

After a couple of years in Record Label Hell, Trent Reznor was saved by Interscope Records and issued the Broken EP in 1992.  Finally ready to record his second full album, Trent relocated to LA and rented a house at 10050 Cielo Drive.

This is where the first of the Manson murders happened on August 9, 1969.

Director Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate was among the victims (crime scene photos here, but think before you click).  Trent claims not to have known anything about the history of the house when he signed the lease.  Here’s what he told Rolling Stone in 1997.

Nevertheless, the album project went ahead and was finished in that house.  And on March 8, 1994, The Downward Spiral was released.  The following week, it entered the US charts at #2 and went on to sell more than four million units in the US, somewhere north of 300,000 in Canada and more than 100,000 in the UK.  Many NIN fans still consider this to be Trent’s best work.

I was so taken with this album that I wrote a book about it.  Although it’s out of print, you can still find it on Amazon.  (I have a huge box in the basement if anyone wants them.  Three bucks should cover the postage for each book.)

If you’re rather have an audio version, much of the text in this book was used in this audio book available from iTunes. There’s no music included, but I read the whole thing.

Failing that, Stereogum has this essay on the record.  And there’s this Huffington Post article written by frequent contributor, Juliette Jagger, on 20 things you may not have known about the album.