Yay or Nay...

[EricMM]

I cannot REMEMBER the last time I did this.

 

But what do people think?

 

Is this album overrated, just right, possibly underrated?

 

Over-hated ?

[Sideburnious]

I'd say just right. It was the album that put them into the mainstream and is probably their most easily approachable and recognisable album (for the generic mass fanbase). Personally I prefer The Fragile over it, and Broken is probably is my favourite.

 

On a sidenote my NiN tickets for their 3/8 show in brixton academy finally arrived today after me buying them months ago, so I'm happy.

[The Man in Blak]

I'd say that Pretty Hate Machine ("Head Like A Hole", specifically) did a pretty good job of getting NIN into the mainstream, actually. But that's neither here nor there.

 

the downward spiral's place in rock history is just about right, leaning towards overrated. It's typically considered one of the best albums of the 90's, and it really is the only album where everything falls into place for Reznor from a songwriting/production standpoint. Of course, it also bears the unfortunate weight of inflating Trent's sense of self-importance in the music world, leading to a This is Spinal Tap-worthy decline, complete with a hilariously bad double album (five years in the making, no less) and the meticulously calculated "return" of With Teeth. But still, there's no getting around the fact that the downward spiral is a good album and, really, the only NIN disc worth listening all the way through anymore, in my opinion.

[snuffbox]

Steroids, lame new material, & irrelevance aside NIN is at least putting on good shows these days.

[The Man in Blak]

I have to admit that the juiced-up Reznor picture in the other thread was a bit of a surprise for somebody who mostly remembers Reznor for how he looked in the video for "The Perfect Drug".

[Edwin MacPhisto]

During exams of my second-to-last semester at school, some of my friends and I got drunk at 2 in the morning, put this on really loudly in somebody's apartment, and ran around spraying each other with fog machines. I think that's what I think of The Downward Spiral these days.

 

On the rare occasions that I listen to NIN anymore, it's generally when something from Pretty Hate Machine comes up on iTunes. That stuff has a goofy enough veneer that it's still pretty fun.

[Guest Grossman=Fag]

I still like Broken, and exactly half a dozen songs he's done elsewhere.

[Epic Reine]

The Fragile is my favorite NIN album.

[UZI Suicide]

The Downward Spiral is perfect, that album was pretty much the soundtrack to my youth (that's not to say I was some depressed goth kid, but I listened to that album after school pretty much every day for about two years)

 

Reznor's post-Spiral stuff is unfairly knocked, especially With Teeth, which is obviously a little more radio friendly than probably any NIN album, but still has some great stuff like "Getting Smaller", "Right Where It Belongs" and "Every Day is Exactly The Same"

[BUTT]

"A Warm Place" is incredible. That's some shit you can go to sleep to, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

 

Trent spends too much time bashing Axl Rose these days.

[Gary Floyd]

I'm a big sucker for producers, and while I don't like NIN too much, I will admit that Spiral has it's charms. Particularly the fact that it was produced by Flood (who's other production credits include Depeche Mode's Violator, Cabaret Voltaire's The Crackdown, a Psychic TV album I forgot the title of, Nick Cave's The Firstborn is Dead and Kicking Against the Pricks, and many more) and Adrian Sherwood (who founded the dub/reggae label On-U, and produced Cabaret Voltaire's Code, everything Tackhead did, Ministry's Twitch) So if there is anything I like about that album, it's the production.