10 Darkest Rock Albums Of The 90s

Just like Kurt Cobain, Trent Reznor also needed a bit of an adjustment period to really become the rock star that he had turned into. Off of the strength of Pretty Hate Machine, Nine Inch Nails were looking to go a lot darker than the electronic feel of their debut, with the Broken EP giving us bits and pieces of what that would sound like on songs like Wish. When we got the long awaited follow up though, what was inside the Downward Spiral is probably the closest an album has come to a psychological thriller.

Framed as a concept album centered around Mr. Self Destruct, Trent really lays into himself on every single track on this album, sending himself that much further down the spiral and succumbing to the most primal urges of the human psyche, from renouncing any form of religion on Heresy to using sexualization as a means to dominate someone on Closer and Reptile.

By the time that we reach the end of the record, the character has decided to redirect all of that energy inward, committing suicide in the title track before looking back on what he could have done differently on the final song Hurt. It may be a nice way to end the album by seeing an alternative happy ending to the story, but that doesn't get rid of all the carnage that we had to plow through to get there.