An Opinion About Almost Nothing, Exhaustively Expressed

E. 1999 Eternal and The Downward Spiral, by Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony and Nine Inch Nails, are two of the greatest albums in music history.

Musically, you might debate me on this point, and you might win. I typically think I’m right about everything, but I have to admit my general opinions never feel as subjective as they do when I’m talking about music. In other words, music makes my opinions seem like opinions rather than facts, and I have a difficult time engaging in a spirited debate about a piece beyond the “this is good ’cause I like it” stage. On the surface, these two albums don’t put up much of a fight; neither one makes me feel anything in particular, both are difficult to sing or dance to, traditionally accessible “hooks” are few and far between, and I don’t know anybody who can personally relate to either one, thematically. None of this helps build my case.

All the same, I do love listening to these records. I don’t think rap vocals have ever felt more instrumental than they do on Eternal; Bone uses probably the most unique vocal delivery in hip hop, and their layered, fluid voices float and weave through every track to extremely pleasing effect. Spiral is much more abrasive, but every jarring, distorted interlude is purposefully crafted, textured, and nuanced (Note: I’m contractually obligated to talk about music as if I’m full of shit). And for every haunting moment (the screams and wails at the beginning of “The Becoming” are literally hellish), there is a delicate and even pretty moment (the piano/vocals of “March of the Pigs,” the final notes of “Closer” that return as the refrain of “The Downward Spiral”). There is also a surprising amount of melody on this album. The more I think about it, the less certain I am that you would win that debate, after all.

But whether you find either album fun to listen to or not is almost incidental to what I find so compelling about them. What interests me most, and what has led me to write about these two seemingly-disparate records together, is that there may not be two other collections of music that have so much in common with one another and so little in common with everything else. No mean feat, given they don’t actually sound anything like each other. But even more intriguing is the fact that what does unify these records also makes them unique, and I think it’s unlikely that we’ll ever hear anything like them again. I think that’s the secret of their greatness, and it’s worth looking into.

The most striking common element of both these albums is that the content of each is extremely explicit. At the time of their release, the “Parental Advisory” sticker was roughly ten years old and gangsta rap was experiencing its golden age; we were all pretty comfortable with adult content at this point. And maybe that’s why the subject matter of these two was and is taken for granted: Rolling Stone said that Eternal “recycle(d) the usual fare of guns, drugs, and money” that typified rap of the era. While I concede that hip hop was generally a playground of violence, in this case I have to disagree with the modifier “usual.” Dre and Snoop may have been smoking endo, fucking hos, and occasionally 187-ing, but they didn’t have track titles like “Die, Die, Die,” “Me Killa,” and “Mo’ Murda.” Bone occupied a world where “even the bitches carry guns.” Drugs and money do feature prominently, but again, there is nothing usual about their inclusion. Very few rappers are turning down blunts, but not even Afroman raps about the herb with the emotion of Bone (see: “Buddha Lovers” and “Bud Smokers Only”), and that is to say nothing of their murderous cocaine-dealing. Similarly, rap’s obsession with money usually centers around excess; “1st of tha Month” and its celebration of a Welfare economy are decidedly unusual.

The Downward Spiral is a little subtler, I suppose, but not much. The album begins innocuously enough, but by track 3 (”Heresy”) Trent Reznor has made it abundantly clear that “God is dead, and no one cares. If there is a hell, I’ll (he’ll) see you there.” Strong words, whether you agree with the sentiment or not. The rest of the album is scattered with “crown(s) of shit” (”Hurt”), “precious whores” (”Reptile”), and the ardent desire to “fuck everyone in the world” (”I Do Not Want This”). But the centerpiece is the song “Closer.” Everybody knows the chorus (”I wanna fuck you like an animal”), and, even more than the words themselves, the ubiquity of these lyrics among rock listeners is the single most explicit thing about this album. I mean, this was a hit song. This gets played on the radio all the time, and when it does, everyone you’re driving in the car with breaks out into singing when that refrain hits (even my Mom and Dad). This is like the “Piano Man” of swear-songs, and everyone it touches becomes more explicit just by hearing it.

Of course, there a lots of R-rated albums, but the content of these two underpins a tone of voice employed by each that makes the experience of listening to them so similar, yet so uncommon within their own genres. Eternal and Spiral are affecting rather than merely shocking, emotional rather than visceral, because their profanity feels like it comes directly from the music. Their words seem to specifically refer to the sounds you hear, and this lends them a sense of necessity that other similarly-themed albums lack. Bone accomplishes this through the unique cadence and intonation of their voices; it’s more like they’re jamming along to the music than actually rapping. Nine Inch Nails pulls it off more traditionally by being very careful that the content matches the emotional quality of the song. It’s like the music itself is conveying all the meaning, and the lyrics are just a literal translation. And this is all reinforced by the fact that neither Bone nor Nine Inch Nails ever breaks character. There are no winks at the audience to let us know they are just posturing, no lighthearted singles or love songs to dilute the vibe, no distracting skits or breaks in the music to ease the tension. This focus also makes them more cohesive; they both operate as complete albums as opposed to just collections of songs recorded at the same time. The listener gets the most mileage out of these two by listening to them start to finish, without skipping tracks.

Traditionally “great” albums and artists usually seem timeless, and this gives them permanence. They also usually leave some sort of imprint on music history, either by changing the direction of a genre or impacting artists that follow them, so that whenever “now” is, you can feel the presence of that great artist. The Beatles helped create modern rock and influenced bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, who went on to become influential themselves. Led Zeppelin had a huge impact on heavy metal. “Dylan-esque” is an expressive, understood adjective (though I would never use it unless I was a total prick).

But Eternal and Spiral are great partly because they are almost exactly the opposite; they were hugely popular, but neither one truly has nor is useful as a point of reference. To me, they don’t fit neatly into a musical timeline or artistic progression, and even though they are definitely related to rap and rock, they don’t have many close relatives within those families. If they were biological specimens, their taxonomy would be very difficult to pin down. Rap of the time was gangsta, and it was East Coast vs. West Coast. Bone was gangsta in a way that other groups weren’t because of the tone of their content, and their delivery didn’t fit neatly into either coast’s camp. Rock was in the throes of grunge and alternative, but Nine Inch Nails didn’t sound anything like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, or Pearl Jam and was only lumped in with them because of a conscious effort on the part of Trent Reznor to market to their audience (hence his appearance on 1991’s Lollapalooza Tour).

As for their legacies moving forward, it’s difficult to directly trace the work of almost any subsequent artists to these albums (This also includes the rest of the output from these two artists, by the way. And I’m not counting the work of the Mo Thugs Family, important as it was). As I’ve already said, there is just no one in hip hop that sounds like Bone, and their artistic gravitas kind of swallows up any rap that is held up to them, at least stylistically. Take the 1997 jam “Notorious Thugs,” for example. You know, the one that pairs up Bone with Biggie. This was actually a song from Biggie’s album, and even though he is one of the most influential and important figures in hip hop history, this song comes off more as a song on which he is the guest rather than vice versa. And Eternal was the reason; it’s the definitive expression of Bone’s style. As for The Downward Spiral, you could argue it paved the way for Marilyn Manson, and maybe the success of that album did make Manson more palatable. But most of the comparisons between the two stem from a lazy association rather than any specific musical bond. Some of Manson’s subject matter did overlap Spiral‘s, but his costumed presentation made him seem more like a caricature of bleakness and disaffection, and his songs lack the conviction of Reznor’s. Nothing else in popular rock music is even that comparable.

When these albums were released in 1994 and 1995, they were wildly successful. Eternal was the number 1 album in the country and won a Grammy. Spiral peaked at number 2 and was named one of the 200 greatest rock albums of all time by Rolling Stone. But can you imagine anything like either one of them coming along now? Hip hop has undergone a huge transformation: it is far more mainstream and viable then it was a decade ago, and rap’s biggest stars are more empire-building businessmen than strictly entertainers and artists, and the themes of rap (money, cash, hos) mirror its ascension. Plus, it’s a lot tougher for Diddy to sell expensive clothes to the upper-middle class if he puts out an entire album devoted to murdering people. And what are the odds of a rock song with “I wanna fuck you like an animal” for a chorus hitting the Top 40 these days? I’d say slim to none, particularly if the artist was as deathly-serious about the sentiment as Nine Inch Nails was. I don’t mean to suggest that there is anything culturally significant about the era that produced these two, but they are undeniably of their time, if only because they could never have come before or after they did. They were great achievements even though they lacked any discernible predecessors or heirs. Kickass.

I know I’ve taken this way too far. And truthfully, I like these albums because they are fun to listen to. But if I were to someday qualify that fun, it would most likely look like this. One of the great things about music is that the joy we derive from it can be dissected and analyzed and argued over and yet simultaneously expressed as an indescribable rush of feeling. It’s intellectual and emotional, depending on what we bring to the table and what we choose to eat when we get there. Just keep your fingers crossed that I don’t decide to break down my love of roller coasters. See you at the Crossroads.