Music / The Downward Spiral

I now know the depths I reach are limitless.

"You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt."

— "Hurt"

The Downward Spiral is the second studio album by American rock band Nine Inch Nails. Released through Nothing Records (in conjunction with TVT Records, Interscope Records, and Atlantic Records) on March 8, 1994, it was the band's first full-length work following their shift from the dark, mechanical take on synthpop and alternative dance heard on their debut album Pretty Hate Machine to the harsher, angrier industrial metal sound introduced on the Broken EP.

The album was (in)famously recorded in a home studio that frontman Trent Reznor had built at 10050 Cielo Drive, dubbed by him as "Le Pig", where the Charles Manson "family" performed the Tate murders in 1969.^note He ended up being the house's final resident, as he left at the end of 1993, taking only the front door to install at his new studio, and the house was demolished the year after.

Built as a Concept Album and heavily inspired by David Bowie's 1977 album Low, Reznor wanted The Downward Spiral both to distinguish its sound from Broken and tell the story of a psychologically wounded character on a path towards complete nihilism, misanthropy, and self-destruction. This character was based heavily on himself, as he was struggling with band conflicts, alcoholism, drug addiction and depression around the time he made the album.

While working on the album, Reznor strived to focus on texture and space, avoiding explicit guitar or synthesizer use. He also strove to make certain parts of the album's story ambiguous, which has made it ripe for interpretation and analysis to this day. You can read one such interpretation here.

The Downward Spiral established Nine Inch Nails as a force in the 1990s music scene, its sounds heavily imitated and the album ultimately being seen as one of the most important musical works of the decade, although Moral Guardians did have quite a mouthful for some of the album's lyrics.

While touring for the album, Reznor ended up befriending its lead inspiration, David Bowie, who just so happened to be promoting Outside, a Rock Opera inspired by the industrial stylings of Nine Inch Nails. Bowie and Reznor combined their live shows together by making Nine Inch Nails' Dissonance tour the opening act for the American leg of Bowie's Outside tour, featuring Bowie and Reznor duetting on one-another's songs. Reznor would also provide remixes for Bowie's singles "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" and "I'm Afraid of Americans", co-starring in the latter's music video. Reznor would later cite this friendship as an influence in his eventual sobriety and Creator Recovery.

In its year of release, the album had two singles, "March of the Pigs" and "Closer to God"^note This single corresponds to the song known simply as "Closer", although it's the title of one of the remixes featured in it, both of which feature a number of remixes and B-sides from the album. Just over a year after its initial release, The Downward Spiral received a remix album titled Further Down the Spiral that contains more remixes from Aphex Twin, Rick Rubin, J.G. Thirlwell, and a good portion of Coil, among other high-profile names. It's reportedly one of the best-selling remix albums of all time.

Following the concert tours for The Downward Spiral, a video album consisting of a set of two VHS tapes, titled Closure, was released in 1997 to accompany it; the first tape (labelled "Part 1") features concert videos, while the second (Part 2) includes music videos connected by a number of transition clips.

The album later received a 10th anniversary remaster in 2004, including a standard edition; a deluxe edition that features a bonus disc with demos, B-sides, remixes (including those from the singles and Further Down the Spiral) and soundtracks that the band made for films; and a DualDisc^note A now-discontinued disc format that features a CD side and a DVD side. version with a stereo mix of the album on the DVD side, alongside music videos, a gallery of Russell Mills' artwork for the album and Closure, and a timeline of the band's discography up to that point with playable track excerpts. This remaster is notorious for being one of the few albums to use the short-lived SACD format^note Which was intended to succeed the standard CD format used for music albums with a better sound quality. on CD releases.

The album's final track "Hurt" is the Trope Namer for What Have I Become?, although ironically it doesn't fit the trope, since the only transformation here is metaphorical.

Followed by The Fragile.

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Tracklist:

Original release

1. "Mr. Self Destruct" (4:30)
2. "Piggy" (4:24)
3. "Heresy" (3:54)
4. "March of the Pigs" (2:58)
5. "Closer" (6:13)
6. "Ruiner" (4:58)
7. "The Becoming" (5:31)
8. "I Do Not Want This" (5:41)
9. "Big Man with a Gun" (1:36)
10. "A Warm Place" (3:22)
11. "Eraser" (4:54)
12. "Reptile" (6:51)
13. "The Downward Spiral" (3:57)
14. "Hurt" (6:13)

"March of the Pigs" single

US version

1. "March of the Pigs"
2. "Reptilian" (8:39)^note Remix of "Reptile"
3. "All the Pigs, All Lined Up"^note Remix of "March of the Pigs"
4. "A Violet Fluid" (1:05)^note A B-side of the album
5. "Underneath the Skin" (7:13)^note Remix of "Reptile"

UK versionDisc 1:

1. "March of the Pigs" (clean version)
2. "All the Pigs, All Lined Up"
3. "A Violet Fluid"
4. "Big Man with a Gun"

Disc 2:

1. "March of the Pigs" (album version)
2. "Underneath the Skin"
3. "Reptilian"

"Closer to God" single

Note that the track listing is different between the US and UK releases (the tracklist featured here is the US one), but the songs remain the same otherwise.

1. "Closer to God" (5:05)^note Remix of "Closer".
2. "Closer (Precursor)" (7:16)^note Remix of "Closer".
3. "Closer (Deviation)" (6:15)^note Remix of "Closer".
4. "Heresy (Blind)" (5:32)^note Remix of "Heresy".
5. "Memorabilia" (5:32)^note Cover of the Soft Cell song of the same name.
6. "Closer (Internal)" (4:15)^note Remix of "Closer".
7. "March of the Fuckheads" (4:43)^note Remix of "March of the Pigs".
8. "Closer (Further Away)" (5:45)^note Remix of "Closer".
9. "Closer" (6:26)^note Slightly extended rendition of "Closer".

Further Down the Spiral

US version

1. "Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)" (4:02)^note Remix of "Piggy".
2. "The Art of Self Destruction, Part One" (5:41)^note Remix of "Mr. Self Destruct".
3. "Self Destruction, Part Two" (5:37)^note Remix of "Mr. Self Destruct".
4. "The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)" (7:28)^note Remix of "The Downward Spiral".
5. "Hurt (Quiet)" (5:08)^note Remix of "Hurt".
6. "Eraser (Denial; Realization)" (5:08)^note Remix of "Eraser".
7. "At the Heart of It All" (7:14)^note An original track made entirely by Aphex Twin for the album.
8. "Eraser (Polite)" (5:08)^note Remix of "Eraser".
9. "The Beauty of Being Numb" (5:06)^note Remix of "Mr. Self Destruct" and "Eraser".
10. "Self Destruction, Final" (9:52)^note Remix of "Mr. Self Destruct".
11. "Eraser (Erased, Over, Out)" (5:08)^note Remix of "Eraser".

International version

1. "Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)"
2. "The Art of Self Destruction, Part One"
3. "Self Destruction, Part Three" (3:28)^note Remix of "Mr. Self Destruct".
4. "Heresy (Version)" (5:19)^note Remix of "Heresy".
5. "The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)"
6. "Hurt (Live)" (5:07)^note Live version of "Hurt".
7. "At the Heart of It All"
8. "Ruiner (Version)" (5:19)^note Remix of "Ruiner".
9. "Eraser (Denial; Realization)"
10. "Self Destruction, Final" (9:52)
11. "Eraser (Erased, Over, Out)" (5:08)

10th anniversary deluxe edition bonus disc

1. "Burn" (5:00)^note Originally made for the soundtrack of Natural Born Killers.
2. "Closer (Precursor)"
3. "Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)"
4. "A Violet Fluid"
5. "Dead Souls" (4:53)^note Cover of the Joy Division song of the same name.
6. "Hurt (Quiet)"
7. "Closer to God"
8. "All the Pigs, All Lined Up"
9. "Memorabilia"
10. "The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)"
11. "Ruiner (Demo)"^note Demo of "Ruiner".
12. "Liar (Demo)"^note Demo of "Reptile".
13. "Heresy (Demo)"^note Demo of "Heresy".

Personnel:

• Trent Reznor: vocals, all instruments, drums
• Chris Vrenna: drums, sampling, programming
• Adrian Belew: texture generating guitar, ring mod guitar
• Danny Lohner: additional guitar
• Andy Kubiszewski, Chris Vrenna: drums
• Stephen Perkins: drum loops
• Charlie Clouser: programming

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I wanna trope you like an animal.

• 13 Is Unlucky: The Title Track is (literally) the 13th track of the album and also the part of the main protagonist's attempted suicide.
• Alas, Poor Villain: By the time the album is over, you can't help but feel sorry for the Villain Protagonist of the album. Despite all that he's done, he's come to realize the consequences for his actions far outweigh any pleasure he received from them.
• Ambiguous Ending: Did the protagonist survive his suicide attempt? While "The Downward Spiral" states that he literally shot himself in the head, there have been cases of people surviving such shots before. Plus, "Hurt" and the following NIN albums The Fragile and Hesitation Marks are often interpreted as continuations of the album's story.
• Animal Motifs: While pigs are the most prominent (i.e. "Piggy," "March of the Pigs," the reference to swine in "Heresy"), other examples include "Reptile," a reference to insects from the aforementioned song, flies and cattle in the rapped sections of "Ruiner," and references to bees (and their honey) in "Closer" and "Reptile."
• Anti-Villain: The protagonist is a prime example of a Type 2 anti-villain.
• Arc Words:
  • "Nothing can stop me now", used throughout the album in contexts of self-empowerment, mania, self-aware descents into madness, or arguably a mix of the three.
  • The references to pigs and some sort of machine also qualify.
• Badass Boast: From "Ruiner":
  You didn't hurt me, nothing can hurt me, you didn't hurt me, nothing can stop me now...
• Belief Makes You Stupid:
  • "Mr. Self Destruct":
    I speak religion's message clear (and I control you)
    I am denial, guilt, and fear (and I control you)
    I am the prayers of the naive (and I control you)
    I am the lie that you believe (and I control you)
  • "Heresy":
    He dreamed a god up and called it Christianity
    Your god is dead, and no one cares!
    If there is a hell, I'll see you there!
• Black Comedy:
  • This is the furthest thing from a humorous album, but the cheerful instances of Mood Whiplash in "March of the Pigs" are somewhat funny due to how purely out of left field they are.
  • Despite being one of the most horrific tracks on the album, "Big Man with a Gun" was written first and foremost as a satire of toxic masculinity and misogyny in gangsta rap, and as it's deliberately mocking that mindset (as well as its extremely intense sound even for the album's standards, in the case of some listeners), it can make for some very, very dark amusement.
    I AM A BIG MAN (YES I AM) AND I'VE GOT A BIG GUN
  • "GOD IS DEAD! AND NO ONE CARES!" from "Heresy".
• Book Ends: According to Trent, the album's first "section" is tracks 1-9, and the first and final tracks ("Mr. Self Destruct" and "Big Man with a Gun") of this section are connected; in "Big Man with a Gun", the protagonist becomes fully corrupted and seemingly irredeemable, the very same thing initially foreshadowed in "Mr. Self Destruct". Additionally, the songs are both at 200 BPM and have similar melodies.
• Bowdlerise: The "crown of shit" line in "Hurt" was changed in Johnny Cash's cover of the song to "crown of thorns", nodding to Cash's devout Christianity.
• Bungled Suicide: According to some interpretations of the album's ending, the protagonist doesn't die from his suicide attempt but still injures himself in the process, taking "Hurt" as an indication for this.
• Careful with That Axe:
  • "Eraser" ends with Reznor screaming "KILL ME" over and over until it dissolves into the noisy background.
  • The ending of "Big Man with a Gun" has Reznor outright screeching "ME AND MY FUCKING GUN" over and over.
  • The Title Track has muffled sounds of Reznor screaming so loudly that it almost drowns out the Machine's talking.
• Creepy Monotone: The Machine, as portrayed by Trent with a chillingly subdued and flat-speaking tone.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: In a symbolic sense; the protagonist's gradual dissociation throughout the album is personified as him losing his humanity to the Machine. "The Becoming" most explicitly details this and even likens his loss of feeling to his body being replaced by machinery.
• Darker and Edgier: Easily the darkest album, lyrically and sonically, that the band had put out at the time, if ever.
• Double Entendre: "Big Man with a Gun" is rife with these, considering its view of the "gun" in question shuffles between an actual gun (insinuating a killing spree) and a penis (insinuating a rape). Throw in some double meanings on words such as "shoot"^note meaning either the pulling of a trigger on a gun or ejaculation, and you have a song that could genuinely go either way.
• Downer Ending:
  • Whether or not you believe that the protagonist killed himself, the album's ending still has the protagonist at the bottom of the spiral after his disconnection from everything, including himself. The only light at the end of the tunnel that the album provides is in retrospect, as the protagonist realizes the errors of his ways in "Hurt" but states that it's too late to start over.
  • Without referencing the album's concept, the conclusion with "Hurt" is an eligible example, as the song is told from the perspective of someone lamenting the emptiness of their life and stating that they will leave no legacy behind.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Maybe. Seems to be played straight with the protagonist in the title track, but the album's ending is especially open to interpretation. "Hurt" is sometimes also seen as being essentially the character's dying moments, or as outside of the story arc altogether.
  • There was a Cut Song from the album titled "Just Do It", which is particularly upfront and unapologetically blunt about suicide (the only known lyrics are "Just do it / nobody cares at all"). Producer Flood convinced Trent to leave it off due to it being too grim, and it's possible that it wasn't even recorded at all.
• Drone of Dread:
  • The sustained, gurgling bass synth in "Reptile".
  • The watery, droning noise in the Title Track.
• Drugs Are Bad:
  • From "Mr. Self Destruct":
    I am the needle in your vein
  • Also, from "Hurt":
    The needle tears a hole,
    the old familiar sting.
• Echoing Acoustics: In the second half of the chorus of "Hurt", a distant duplicate of Trent's vocals panned to the side begins singing one quarter-bar before the main vocals.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number: "Reptile" acts as this, being the moment where the protagonist fully realizes he's hit rock bottom as the only solace he can find is within the toxic connection he shares with a prostitute. It's the final track we hear before his suicide attempt.
• Epic Rocking: "Closer", "Reptile", and "Hurt"
• Fading into the Next Song:
  • "The Becoming" crossfades into "I Do Not Want This", which in turn segues into "Big Man with a Gun".
  • "A Warm Place" ends with the blowing sounds that open "Eraser".
  • The Title Track ends with the white noise heard throughout "Hurt".
  • Some of the songs on the original version actually have bits from the previous song at the very, very start. "Piggy" has a bit of "Mr. Self Destruct", and "A Warm Place" has a very loud and abrupt bit from "Big Man with a Gun". These were fixed on the remaster.
• Fate Worse than Death: Heavily implied to be the case for the protagonist's entire existence. At the end of "Eraser" you can faintly hear him screaming "Help me".
• God Is Dead: "Heresy" and "Ruiner". In the former, the protagonist rants against Christianity and religion as a whole, and in the latter, he kills God himself.
  Your god is dead, and no one cares!
  If there is a hell, I'll see you there!
• Going Postal: A possible interpretation for "Big Man with a Gun" (see Double Entendre above).
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: As the album goes on, the protagonist becomes increasingly untrustworthy for himself being the embodiment of all the things he doesn't like.
• Hope Spot: "A Warm Place" acts as a moment of clarity for the protagonist following whatever horrific act he committed in "Big Man with a Gun", and possibly hints that he will turn things around...but we find that the damage he's done is truly irreversible as the song segues into "Eraser", which is where the Machine finally consumes the protagonist.
• "I Am" Song: "Mr. Self Destruct" and "Big Man with a Gun" are both songs with the protagonist basking quite amorously in his depraved character.
• "I Am Becoming" Song: Naturally, "The Becoming", centered around the beginning of the protagonist's identity being consumed by the Machine.
• The Immodest Orgasm: "Big Man with a Gun" begins with a distorted, warbling female scream of pleasure.
• Instrumental: "A Warm Place". Technically subverted, as you can very, very dimly hear a voice saying something around the start of the song^note A popular guess is "The best part of life is knowing you put it together", but it was never confirmed.
• Intercourse with You: Very, very dark examples, as per the tone of the album.
  • It is widely rumored that in "Closer", the protagonist feels closer to God by doing this through helpless victims to escape his former life. Reznor denied that "Closer" was about sex in interviews and instead suggested it to be an Anti-Love Song.
  • In "Reptile", he is to have someone else who feels nothing at all emotionally, but sexually tortures him instead.
• Isn't It Ironic?: All of the sex-based songs on the album, some of them undeniably sensual in sound, contain lyrics detailing how the sex in question is achieving an incredibly toxic goal for the protagonist, and ultimately amounts to another step down the spiral for him. Especially egregious is how "Closer", in essence a dark deconstruction of Sex for Solace, has a legacy of being one of the sexiest songs ever made.
• Jump Scare:
  • When "March of the Pigs" rather suddenly continues playing after a prolonged period of silence.
  • On the original album, "A Warm Place" has a very loud split-second of audio leftover from "Big Man with a Gun" (the previous track) at the very start of the song. This was fixed on later editions.
  • The ending of "Hurt"; most of the song is generally miles calmer and slower than the tracks preceding it (while still undeniably bleak in tone and atmosphere). However, once Trent gets to the final line ("I would find a way"), a set of loud guitar notes blares in suddenly.
• Last Note Nightmare:
  • "Mr. Self Destruct" ends with a bunch of overlapped guitar tracks playing different melodies at once, creating dissonant noise.
  • The original version of "A Warm Place" inverts this trope if you play the song on repeat (see Jump Scare above), but the song also plays this trope straight with its ending moments. Not only does its melody shift into a darker key, but it also concludes with the uneasy blowing sounds that start "Eraser", tainting the otherwise calm atmosphere.
  • The Title Track ends with a harsh, distorted cymbal noise that fades into "Hurt".
  • "Hurt" ends with a sudden blast of guitar noise that nearly drowns out the final line and then carries out for over a minute before fading into the background.
• Leitmotif: A particular chromatic melody, often called the "Downward Spiral motif", recurs throughout the album, appearing in "Piggy", "Heresy", "Closer", and the Title Track. "A Warm Place" also uses it, but inverted.
• Lighter and Softer: "A Warm Place" and "Hurt"—at least, until the endings.
• Madness Mantra: Used frequently throughout.
  • "Mr. Self Destruct": "You let me do this to you (I am the exit)". Said a total of 8 times.
  • The outro of "Ruiner" has "you didn't hurt me, nothing can stop me now" repeated, although it's clear that the protagonist is just lying to himself.
  • At the end of "The Becoming": "it won't give up, it wants me dead, goddamn this noise inside my head" is shrieked over and over again.
  • "I Do Not Want This" has three: "I do not want this", "Don't you tell me how I feel", and "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".
  • The repeated screams of "me and my fucking gun" at the end of "Big Man With a Gun".
  • "Eraser" ends with Trent repeatedly shouting "Kill me!" The same thing is heard in "Erased, Over, Out" from the remix album.
• Misogyny Song: "Big Man with a Gun" and "Closer" are both stealth parodies of these particular types of song, which unfortunately got severely misinterpreted.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Across the whole album:
    • The hard, mechanical opening of "Mr. Self Destruct" is followed by the slow and softer "Piggy".
    • The violent snap in sanity heard in "Big Man with a Gun" is followed by the calming instrumental "A Warm Place", which is in turn followed by the torturing cries of "Eraser".
  • The threatening, pulsating chorus of "March of the Pigs" is abruptly stopped by some rather lively piano with Trent singing jovially over it to the effect that it's the closest the album gets to sounding like a jingle.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • "A Warm Place" is a rare audio-only example following the (possibly sexually) violent power trip of "Big Man with a Gun", as it represents the place of respite that the protagonist's mind retreats to following the events.
  • The final track, "Hurt" also counts as this, though it's mainly of the What Have I Become? variant.
• No Ending: "Ruiner" ends abruptly (mid-phrase, no less; as Trent is saying "nothing can stop me now", the last word before the song cuts is "stop"), as does "Big Man with a Gun".
• No Name Given: The protagonist has no official name, only giving himself the nickname "Mr. Self Destruct" in the opening song.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • We never get an exact idea of who, what and where the narrator is, only his general thought process. Because of this, we never learn specifically what he does in "Big Man with a Gun", but the violent ramblings and samples of pornography imply something horrific.
  • The first "doesn't it make you feel better?" piano section of "March of the Pigs" is followed by a good portion of silence before the song suddenly continues.
  • "A Warm Place" manages to be soothing yet unnerving at the same time for this exact reason.
• One-Man Song: "Mr. Self Destruct" and "Big Man With A Gun".
• The Oner: The single-shot Performance Video of "March of the Pigs", reportedly the only take out of a dozen that "did not suck."
• One-Word Title: "Piggy", "Heresy", "Closer", "Ruiner", "Eraser", "Reptile" and "Hurt".
• Performance Video: "March of the Pigs" was given one, notably shot in one take.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: "Big Man With A Gun" demonstrates the protagonist to be quite a misogynist.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • "March of the Pigs": "I wanna break it up / I wanna smash it up / I wanna fuck it up."
  • "Closer" gives us one of the most iconic lines in music history: "I wanna fuck you like an animal."
  • "I Do Not Want This": "I want to know everything / I want to be everywhere / I want to fuck everyone in the world."
  • "The Downward Spiral": "Problems do have solutions, you know / A lifetime of fucking things up fixed / In one determined flash."
  • "Hurt" has "I wear this crown of shit", which was changed into "I wear this crown of thorns" in the Johnny Cash cover, referencing Cash's Christianity.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Zig-Zagged in the Title Track, where the protagonist attempts to off himself by shooting himself in the head. The wound is described as being small, but gushes a large amount of blood:
  So much blood for such a tiny little hole
• Rage Against the Heavens: "Heresy" and "Ruiner" have the protagonist violently disillusioning himself from God — the former, especially.
• Rape as Drama: A common interpretation of "Big Man with a Gun", with the Freudian overtones of the titular gun in question.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: The very last passage of "Hurt" could be understood as one, if you don't take it as the protagonist meaning that he'll just manage to ruin his life and others'. Some who see The Fragile as a continuation of the album may interpret this as taking place directly before The Fragile begins.
  If I could start again
  A million miles away
  I would keep myself
  I would find a way.
• Record Producer: Trent Reznor and Mark "Flood" Ellis.
• Recurring Riff: The famous "Downward Spiral motif", which appears in "Piggy", "Heresy", "Closer", and "The Downward Spiral", as well as a certain version of "Eraser" only played on the Dissonance Tour.
• Religion Rant Song: "Heresy" and "Ruiner".
• Retraux: The music video for "Closer" was built around the image of a depraved 19th century scientist's laboratory, something reflected not only in the set design, but also the use of "slightly out of date" film stock to give the visuals a grainy, vintage appearance. The TV edit goes a step further, replacing more objectionable shots with "scene missing" cards and censoring instances of the word "fuck" by making the footage itself stutter, giving the impression that the music video was reconstructed from degraded surviving clips.
• Sampling:
  • From the original songs:
    • "Mr. Self Destruct" begins with a sampled clip from THX 1138, that of a man being beaten, which increases in tempo until it matches the song proper.
    • "March of the Pigs" includes screaming taken from Sorcerer and Exorcist II: The Heretic.
    • The kick drum sound of "Closer" is a sample of the song "Nightclubbing" from Iggy Pop's album The Idiot, which was produced by David Bowie. Roxy Music's "Take a Chance with Me" is also sampled at the end of the song.
    • "Ruiner"'s intro section features pitched-up elephant sounds from the opening sequence of Elephant Man, while its bridge samples screaming from Parents. Meanwhile, the song's drums are taken from Art of Noise's "Beat Box".
    • The crowd screaming in the background of "The Becoming" is taken from Robot Jox. Meanwhile, the muffled vocals in the acoustic sections are a reversed sample of Harry Angel's line "I know who I am" from Angel Heart.
    • The porn star sample on "Big Man with a Gun", which is distorted and processed to the point of being unrecognizable. The liner notes call this sample "Steakhouse".
    • "Reptile" takes its opening machinery sounds from Leviathan (1989), and the looping female voice in the bridge is from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974.
    • The Title Track's watery noise in the intro is from Alien's opening credits, while the build-up guitar riff's 'ambience' is from "Twins", a song on the soundtrack of Dead Ringers.
  • From the remixes:
    • Two of "Mr. Self Destruct"'s remixes, "Self Destruction, Part Two" and "Self Destruction, Final", sample David Bowie's own song "Time".
    • The "Closer" remix "Closer (Deviation)" from the "Closer to God" single adds samples from Can's "Pinch" and Brian Eno and David Byrne's "Mountain of Needles".
    • "Eraser (Denial; Realization)" features a slowed-down speech from the film adaptation of At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
    • "The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)" features an excerpt of Coil's "First Dark Ride".
• Sadist: Played for Drama, as the protagonist has an extreme obsession with inflicting pain on others in order to make up for their own personal insecurities and fears, as demonstrated in "Closer".
• Sanity Slippage Song: The whole album.
• Sensory Abuse: The vocals and instrumentation are often distorted to the point of harshness. Specific moments include:
  • The end of "Mr. Self Destruct", composed of different guitar loops stacked on top of each other to create a dissonant wall of noise.
  • Invoked in the Title Track, in order to sound like it's rotting and disintegrating to mirror the protagonist's rapidly declining mental state.
• Sex for Solace: Deconstructed, and ruthlessly so at that; "Closer" shows how unhealthy this mindset is, and just how demented a person like the protagonist would have to be, emotionally, to adopt it.
• Sinister Swine: Pigs are used as an Animal Motif within the bleak storyline that the album follows. The songs with the most prominent references are "Piggy", "Heresy" (which uses "swine" as a word), and "March of the Pigs".
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The first two thirds of the album involve the protagonist becoming a villain due to various bad things happening to him, starting with various addictions ("Mr. Self-Destruct"), then losing his girlfriend^note The most accepted interpretation is that she broke up or cheated on him, though some others consider the cause to be her death or something else. ("Piggy") and finally some sort of mental illness ("The Becoming"). By "Big Man with a Gun", he's become a Serial Rapist or mass murderer.
• Sociopathic Hero: The protagonist of the album is characterized by a total disregard for the well-being of others, and even his own, eventually culminating in what might have been a mass shooting or a rape. Although towards the end, just how much of a sociopath he really is is called into question, when he begins to develop a conscience and feel regret for his actions, leading to a suicide attempt that — assuming he survived — only results in him shamefully coming to believe that the sole purpose in his life is to hurt others.
• Special Guest: King Crimson frontman Adrian Belew plays guitar parts throughout the album; Trent Reznor credited Belew's work with restoring his sense of confidence in the instrument as a tool for artistic and emotional expression.
• Split-Personality Takeover: This happens to the protagonist between "The Becoming" and "I Do Not Want This", during which the Machine takes over his mind, culminating in him going on a rampage in "Big Man with a Gun".
  The me that you know, he doesn't come around much
  That part of me isn't here anymore
• Spoken Word in Music: Whenever Trent assumes the role of the Machine, he speaks quasi-seductively and so softly that his words are almost drowned out by the music. This occurs in "I Do Not Want This" and the Title Track.
• Subdued Section: "Mr. Self Destruct", "March of the Pigs", "Heresy", "Ruiner", "I Do Not Want This", "Eraser", and "Reptile" all have this dynamic.
• Take That!:
  • Reznor has said that "Big Man With a Gun" was written to make fun of "the whole misogynistic Gangsta Rap bullshit".
  • "Heresy" contains mocking references to right-wing Christians who blamed HIV/AIDS on people's alleged sexual immorality, an attitude which Reznor found to be utterly reprehensible.
• Tempting Fate: "Nothing can stop me now", basically whenever it's used, but especially in "Piggy" and "Ruiner". In the latter, the phrase is cut off after "stop" and the next song, "The Becoming", begins.
• Textless Album Cover: Some versions of the album cover, like the one on The Other Wiki's page for the album.
• That Man Is Dead: In "The Becoming", the narrator phrases his loss of the ability to feel like a dissociation from the person he used to be.
  The me that you know, he had some second thoughts
  He's covered with scabs, he is broken and sore
  The me that you know, he doesn't come around much
  That part of me isn't here anymore.
• Title Track: "The Downward Spiral," though the title isn't mentioned in the lyrics themselves.
• Uncommon Time:
  • "March of the Pigs" has three bars of 7/8 time and one bar of 8/8 time (except in the normal-time chorus).
  • Most of "The Becoming" has a bar of 7/4 followed by a bar of 6/4, and its bridge is in 6/8.
• Villainous BSoD: After the protagonist's Sanity Slippage is complete and he commits whatever horrible act he did in "Big Man With a Gun", he begins to realize that his depravity has reached its peak and makes one last attempt to find some solace in his miserable existence. He ultimately fails in doing so, and shoots himself. Assuming he survived, he's now gone past the Despair Event Horizon, as best demonstrated in "Hurt".
• Villain Protagonist: The album's main character, who is named "Mr. Self Destruct" in the opening track.
  I take you where you want to go
  I give you all you need to know
  I drag you down, I use you up
  Mr. Self-destruct
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Despite his moral reprehensibility and delusions of grandeur, the protagonist clearly has a lot of deep-seated mental issues, and by the end, he becomes pitiful in his regret-fueled despair.
• Yandere:
  • The protagonist of the album is a male example of this trope, as demonstrated in "Mr. Self Destruct" and "Closer".
  • "Reptile" has a female example.
• You Keep Telling Yourself That:
  • In "Big Man With A Gun", the protagonist has to reassure himself that he's a "big man" before he does something unspeakable.
  • The Arc Words are also an example: "Nothing can stop me now." By the end, the protagonist makes an attempt on his own life. If he didn't succeed, then he was left broken.

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The pigs have won tonight.
Now they can all sleep soundly,
and everything is alright.

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