ihavebeenfloated

I feel like I have been waiting my entire life for this release. I got giddy all over again, the memory of the first time I opened up The Downward Spiral all those years ago and not knowing then, but knowing now, how the album would completely change my entire life. I’m being completely honest, I probably wouldn’t be who I am now if it wasn’t for Trent’s masterwork on The Downward Spiral. I would almost go as far to say that if it wasn’t for TDS, I might not even be alive today. Trent’s work helped me through the most (admittedly pointlessly) depressing time for my entire life, and if I didn’t have his music by my side the entire time, I wouldn’t be here today.

Now, a little over ten years later, I’m getting to listen to the album for the very first time, all over again. All those years ago, my first glimpses of The Downward Spiral were on two shitty stereo speakers piped out of a Sony boom box. Now, in the present, it’s through a pair of Seinheiser HD-580s, hooked up to a custom made headphone amplifier, patched into a DVDROM drive. Oh, how far we’ve come.

Although I’ve already gone as far to say that it’s like listening to the album for the first time, I want to clarify that it’s not any different from the original, really. Everything is as it was, nothing has been re-recorded it seems, but bits and pieces of the songs that were previously unintelligible or unnoticeable to me are brighter, easier to spot. It’s amazing to me that an album released in 1994 had so many layers, Trent was way ahead of his time on TDS and it shows in this newly remastered edition.

Regardless, however, if you’ve never managed to listen to TDS through a good audio set up, now is your chance to do it right. If you have a decent 5.1 set up for your DVD collection, you owe it to yourself to buy this deluxe edition or the dual disc DVD edition of The Downward Spiral and crank it loud. Your mileage may vary, but I think the best experience that can be had would be through a good pair of earphones like my set up.

OK, back to the auditory bliss now.