10 Hard Rock Music Bands That Avoided The Sophomore Slump
2. The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails
Before the release of The Downward Spiral, Trent Reznor was already on the verge of something a lot darker. Coming off of his debut record Pretty Hate Machine, Reznor was looking to get a lot more aggro, with the EP Broken giving us a somber look at a man who's lost all sense of morality and sinking further and further down to the bottom. That was still Trent though, and we got a warm welcome from Mr. Self Destruct on this album.
While the core sound of Nine Inch Nails hasn't changed all that much between both albums, the aesthetic is a lot more disturbed on The Downward Spiral. Framed as a concept album depicting a man seeping further and further into his most toxic personalities, every song on this album feels like it's coming from a different point in the man's own self destruction, from trying to lure other people in to come join him on Piggy to ultimately trying to dominate everyone he comes in contact with on the power trips of Big Man With a Gun and Closer.
This isn't a story with a happy ending either, with the album finishing off on Hurt, where the man counts all his losses and wondering how things would have gone differently if he had tried to seek help in the first place. Everyone deserves some form of redemption arc, but on the tail end of this record, he might be too far gone to be saved.