1001 Other Albums<p>Okay, so, not unlike how our new “II Much II Listen II” series began, the other day I listened to two rock opera albums in a row, and then asked Mastodon for recommendations of more rock opera or concept albums. I got like 40 dumped in my lap, a few of which are on The List, so, well, here we are. </p><p>Each post in this new series, “Thursday, What A Concept!” will spotlight an album from The List that is a rock opera or some other type of concept album, and will go up on – you guessed it – Thursdays. “Concept album” is a bit of a loose, uh, concept, so I’m not sure how long this series will go, but I’ll include the list of the other album recommendations I received in the last(-ish) post of the series.</p> <p>To start this new series off, we’re going to go with an album that I can remember listening to for the very first time like it was yesterday…because (at the time of writing this) it was literally yesterday.</p><p>I thought I knew what Nine Inch Nails was about simply based off of the few singles I had passively heard many many times. Because of my opinion of those songs as standalone things, I had long-ago labelled myself as “not a fan” of NIN/Trent Reznor. And, even when there was a couple of things that popped up with his name on it that I really loved – namely Johnny Cash’s amazing cover of “Hurt”, and Reznor’s collab with Bowie on “I’m Afraid of Americans” – I instantly labelled those as one-off exceptions that didn’t change my “not a fan” classification, exceptions that never warranted me to actually go check out NIN/Reznor in earnest.</p><p>And so, when <em>The Downward Spiral</em> (number 865 on <a href="https://1001otheralbums.com/the-list/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The List,</a> submitted by leonardo) came up on the album generator for the “official” 1001 Albums list, I groaned, didn’t listen to it on the day I was supposed to, or the next, or the next, leaving the albums to pile up simply because I didn’t want to listen to NIN. But then, yesterday, I was in the right mood to listen to something I didn’t want to and, well, I was pleasantly surprised. As those who saw me live tooting it, it started with “hmm, not a NIN fan, but this is a solid album” and ended with “I’m crying, this is a masterpiece”. <em>(Editor’s note, 1 week later: By the time this is published, I predict I will have listened to it roughly a million times.)</em></p><p>Reader, I <em>love</em> being wrong about a band. I love going from “not a fan” to a fan. I love discovering an album I should’ve been listening to long ago, and thinking about how much I’m going to enjoy listening to it in the future. I love going down a rabbit hole and excitedly learning a billion facts about an album, facts that I’m probably the last person in the Fediverse to learn.</p><p>Like, did you know <em>The Downward Spiral</em> is a concept album? I had honestly judged the album pretty much solely based on the lyric “I want to fuck you like an animal” (from the song “Closer”), so I, for one, was shocked to discover it is a (semi-autobiographical) concept album – the concept being the process of a man’s complete self-destruction, the songs creating a narrative of his, well, downward spiral that ends in his end – and hence why it is here in this series. And did you know the cover of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls” that otherwise appears on <em>The Crow</em> soundtrack (which is also on The List) is also on the Japanese release of <em>Downward Spiral</em> (between “Big Man With A Gun” and “A Warm Place”)? And, and, did you know Reznor literally accidentally re-wrote Bowie’s “Crystal Japan” when he wrote “A Warm Place”?! (Check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jONvR5zMy1w" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">this Bowie/Reznor interview</a>, starting at 2:10.) And, and, and, did you know Bowie and NIN performed “Hurt” together on their 1995 co-headlining tour following this album, and it’s absolutely magical?!! (Check <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb1q_64ZKVg" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">this video</a> out, starting at 20:15 – eternal thanks to ErgonWolf for the link!!!)</p><p>As I said, since probably everyone else knows every fact about this album – especially since it’s now been around for no less than 30 FLIPPIN’ YEARS – I, the newly initiated, will not pretend to be an expert here and will not wax poetical other than – holy shit, if you think you know what this album sounds like but have never actually given it a chance, please do. Like any concept album, I think this is best listened to in one go to get the full experience rather than a song here and there, and then again (and again and again). As the liner notes say:</p><blockquote><p>“the downward spiral” was conceived by trent reznor as a complete work. it is in your best interest to listen to the record as a whole rather than a mere collection of songs…</p><p>“the downward spiral” is a bleak, desperate, tension filled recording. your perception of this record will mutate with repeated listens.</p></blockquote><p>I know that this album has meant/does mean a lot to a lot of you, so I’d love to hear your stories below, if you’d like to share with the class. Any and all random facts about the album, its concept, etc. are also welcome.</p><p><em>The Downward Spiral</em> – what a concept!</p><ul><li><a href="https://album.link/ca/i/1440837096" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Songlink: Nine Inch Nails – <em>The Downward Spiral</em></a></li><li><a href="https://www.discogs.com/master/3719-Nine-Inch-Nails-The-Downward-Spiral" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Discogs: Nine Inch Nails – <em>The Downward Spiral</em></a></li><li><a href="https://www.nin.wiki/The_Downward_Spiral_(halo)" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NIN.wiki: <em>The Downward Spiral</em> (<em>Halo 8</em>)</a></li></ul><a class="" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ninalbumcover.jpg?w=300" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[🖼 The album artwork is a photo of Russell Mills' mixed media piece titled "Wound", made of plaster, acrylics, oils, rusted metals, insects, moths, blood, wax, varnishes, and surgical bandaging on a wooden panel. It is primarily smudges of various sizes in random places, in yellows, browns, and blacks. The band name is in small purple font above a black blob on the left side of the cover, followed by the album name.]</a><p><a href="https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/06/06/thursday-what-a-concept-nine-inch-nails-the-downward-spiral-1994-us/" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/06/06/thursday-what-a-concept-nine-inch-nails-the-downward-spiral-1994-us/</a></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/1001otheralbums/" target="_blank">#1001OtherAlbums</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/1990s/" target="_blank">#1990s</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/experimental/" target="_blank">#experimental</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/industrial/" target="_blank">#industrial</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/industrial-rock/" target="_blank">#industrialRock</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/nin/" target="_blank">#NIN</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/nine-inch-nails/" target="_blank">#NineInchNails</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/thursday-what-a-concept-2/" target="_blank">#ThursdayWhatAConcept</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://1001otheralbums.com/tag/trent-reznor/" target="_blank">#TrentReznor</a></p>