Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Blender | |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| Entertainment Weekly | (B+) |
| Los Angeles Times | |
| Pitchfork Media | (8.3/10) |
| PopMatters | (9/10) |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Sputnikmusic | |
| USA Today | |
The Downward Spiral was released in March 1994. The album debuted the following week at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart. To date, the album has sold over five million copies worldwide; on 28 October 1998 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the album quadruple platinum, denoting shipments of four million in the United States, making it Nine Inch Nails' highest-selling work there. The Downward Spiral was well received by critics. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote, "every instrument, acoustic or synthetic, seems tuned to create the maximum aural abrasion." Pareles asserted that unlike other electro-industrial groups like Ministry and Nitzer Ebb, "Reznor writes full-fledged tunes; he knows his way around melodic hooks, not just riffs. And while purists accuse him of selling out their insular genres, he actually trumps them; the music is no less transgressive, and possibly more so, because it sticks in the ear." Robert Christgau gave the album an honorable mention rating, and said that, musically, the album was comparable to "Heironymus Bosch as postindustrial atheist", but lyrically, more closely resembled "Transformers as kiddie porn." Rolling Stone awarded the album four out of five stars; reviewer Jonathan Gold praised the album as "music that pins playback levels far into the red", and concluded, "The Downward Spiral is music the blade runner might throw down to: low-tech futurism that rocks." Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B+; reviewer Tom Sinclair wrote, "Reznor's pet topics (sex, power, S&M, hatred, transcendence) are all here, wrapped in hooks that hit your psyche with the force of a blowtorch." In its 2004 edition, The New Rolling Stone Album Guide gave the album five out of five stars and called it "a powerful statement, and one of the landmark albums of the Nineties."
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