01	Mr. Self Destruct						04:30
	02	Piggy						04:24
	03	Heresy						03:54
	04	March Of The Pigs						02:58
	05	Closer						06:13
	06	Ruiner						04:58
	07	The Becoming						05:31
	08	I Do Not Want This						05:41
	09	Big Man With A Gun						01:36
	10	A Warm Place						03:23
	11	Eraser						04:53
	12	Reptile						06:51
	13	The Downward Spiral						03:57
	14	Hurt						06:14

It was Ministry that most notably pioneered the potent intersection of industrial music's relentlessly regular rhythms with punk's over-the-top aggression and metal's bludgeoning guitar riffs, but it was Trent Reznor -- who is Nine Inch Nails -- who put the hybrid across to a mass audience. The difference? Ministry was snidely cynical; Reznor is painfully sincere and self-lacerating, exactly what the '90s required: a hipper and more sonically experimental Nirvana. There's something perverse on many levels about an album whose catchiest song, "Closer," has the chorus "I want to fuck you like an animal / I want to feel you from the inside / I want to fuck you like an animal / My whole existence is flawed / You get me closer to God." Much was made of the fact that Reznor recorded this album in his Beverly Hills living room, not so much because the auteur did it all himself as that he lived in the house where Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's followers. There's an undercurrent suggesting that relief from angst and self-loathing -- even a sort of redemption -- might be achieved through the basest actions. On "I Do Not Want This," Reznor first voices the eternal teenage lament, "Don't you tell me how I feel / You don't know just how I feel," then expresses the ambition that can cure that inner emptiness: "I want to know everything / I want to be everywhere / I want to fuck everyone in the world / I want to do something that matters." For all of Reznor's pointed lyrics, however, the ultimate greatness of this album lies in its sound. It's as if the only solace he can find in this ugly world is the friction of varied timbres rubbing against each other. The album is full of contrasts and juxtapositions: his lulling quiet voice and his abrasive screams; brutal machines and chainsaw electric guitars vs. purer sounds that pop up unexpectedly (the piano in "March of the Pigs," the acoustic guitar on the title track). Distortion, the antithesis of machine-honed perfection, is a regular tool, and connects both to the lo-fi punk movement and to Jimi Hendrix (the guitar solo on "Ruiner"). Ultimately, it's only when Reznor turns off his brain/mouth that he finds some sort of peace: the instrumental "A Warm Place" is downright pretty as it evokes the quiet of the womb and the soothing wash of amniotic fluid. Life is all a downward spiral after exiting that sanctuary. Steve Holtje