Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.54)
- Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's."Rolling Stone (3/24/94, p.92)
- 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Nine Inch Nails achieve a new kind of loud on THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: accessible hard rock moves overlaid with a scrim of electronic racket...THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL is music the Blade Runner might throw down to: low-tech futurism that rocks...." Spin (9/99, p.124)
- Ranked #11 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s." Spin (12/94, p.76)
- Rankded #4 in Spin's list of the `20 Best Albums Of '94' - "...transfixes you with the heaviest metal, the most trance-inducing rave, and the silliest synth-pop you're ever likely to hear in songs this hummable..." Q (7/01, p.90)
- Included in Q's "50 Heaviest Albums of All Time". Q (12/99, p.171)
- Included in Q Magazine's Best Gothic Albums Of All Time - "...the migraine masterpiece that catapulted [Reznor] to #2 in the Billboard charts....it's a day at the dentist's: all screeching and pulsing, but sexy with it..." Alternative Press (7/95, p.82)
- Ranked #24 in AP's list of the `Top 99 Of '85-'95' - "...This recording, coming some five years after Reznor's full-length debut, [is] a stark expose of the darkest regions of the soul: those places where our personal demons reign, and God feels unwelcome..." Vibe (12/99, p.158)
- Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century Musician (5/94, p.72)
- "...beneath all that bad attitude and aural aggro lies music of extraordinary insight, intelligence, and, yes, beauty....An astonishing piece of work...." Village Voice (3/94, p.5)
- Ranked #2 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. Village Voice (2/28/95)
- Ranked #9 in the Village Voice's 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. Kerrang (Magazine)
(p.53)
- "Displaying breathtaking invention and variety, it's a deeply textured work..." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.54)
- Ranked #98 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "More than a celebration of nihilism,...SPIRAL was an anguished cry for something to believe in." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.117)
- 4 stars out of 5 - "Reznor's industrial-blues masterpiece still drips with vileness." New York Times (Publisher)
(1/5/95, p.C15)
- Included on Jon Pareles' list of the Top 10 Albums Of '94 - "Trent Reznor orchestrates the terrors of adolescence...with creepy-crawly sounds and a clandestine sense of melody." | 
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