This album is what started my obsession with music. I was so blown away, that I rushed to the store to buy all of the singles, albums and remix albums. It took me a while to adjust to other types of music, because the world of NIN is hard to leave once imprisoned inside of it. Most of the other music of the time seemed uninteresting, since this was very exotic and dense. This started my craze of audio production, which took me to college and from there to two degrees. This is required listening in the field of audio producers. It is considered one of the best engineered albums of all time, right next to Sgt Peppers and Dark Side of the Moon. A great collection of songs. Second only to The Fragile. 5/5

The Downward Spiral. It is a record of such power, and emotion, that it is almost impossible to listen to once and discard. A big mistake made by many people is that they will treat it as just any record: listen to it, and turn it off mid-song to answer the phone, or just listen to a random song on their iPod Shuffles. As amazing as this record is, it usually takes a little effort on the listeners part; appreciation. But once you do get into it, every listen makes you more of a rabid fan. Make sure to listen straight through to the end, as should be done with all of Reznor's work. Once you get into it though, you will be happy you did.