Reviews
Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's.", Included on Jon Pareles' list of the Top 10 Albums Of '94 - "Trent Reznor orchestrates the terrors of adolescence...with creepy-crawly sounds and a clandestine sense of melody.", Included in Q Magazine's Best Gothic Albums Of All Time - "...the migraine masterpiece that catapulted Reznor to #2 in the Billboard charts....it's a day at the dentist's: all screeching and pulsing, but sexy with it...", Rankded #4 in Spin's list of the `20 Best Albums Of '94' - "...transfixes you with the heaviest metal, the most trance-inducing rave, and the silliest synth-pop you're ever likely to hear in songs this hummable...", Ranked #24 in AP's list of the `Top 99 Of '85-'95' - "...This recording, coming some five years after Reznor's full-length debut, is a stark expose of the darkest regions of the soul: those places where our personal demons reign, and God feels unwelcome...", 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Nine Inch Nails achieve a new kind of loud on THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: accessible hard rock moves overlaid with a scrim of electronic racket...THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL is music the Blade Runner might throw down to: low-tech futurism that rocks....", Ranked #98 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "More than a celebration of nihilism,...SPIRAL was an anguished cry for something to believe in.", "Displaying Breathtaking Invention and Variety, It's a Deeply Textured Work...", Ranked #2 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll., Ranked #9 in the Village Voice's 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll., 4 Stars Out of 5-"Reznor's Industrial-Blues Masterpiece Still Drips with Vileness.", "...beneath all that bad attitude and aural aggro lies music of extraordinary insight, intelligence, and, yes, beauty....An astonishing piece of work....", Ranked #11 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s.", Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century, "This album cemented his reputation as the foremost synthesizer of clangorous rattle, driving guitars, and pure pop sensibilities.", Included in Q's "50 Heaviest Albums of All Time".
