10 Metal Albums With ONE Bad Song
7. Big Man With A Gun - Nine Inch Nails
The minute that you turn on The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, there is no off switch for the intensity. As Mr. Self Destruct washes over you, the rest of the album ramps up the darkness by showing the protagonist of the story sinking further and further into addiction before he tries to take his own life. You have a lot of aggression here, but than you also have anger for anger's sake.
Towards the mid point of the record, Big Man With a Gun certainly feels like it fits within the confines of the album, showing our "hero" going on a tirade and looking for sex at every turn. When you take it out of the record, this song does everything wrong that the other tracks do correctly, with Trent's sarcastic tone almost sounding like he's doing a parody of what these mindless freaks would do.
And that's because he is to an extent. Years after the fact, Trent actually talked about the construction of this song being a kind of satire of the misogynistic gangsta rap lyrics that were coming out at the time. He also says that if he had the opportunity to go back in time, he probably wouldn't have included this on the album. Given how much brilliance is on this record, this is the short track where we just hold our ears and wait for it to be over.