I'm not sure why or how, what aspect of my upbringing it was, or my social status in school, but when my friend Keith handed me his beat up copy of Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, my entire outlook on everything changed forever. I'll say that I never thought about it too hard before, but this is "the album" for me.

I can't help but feel kind of like someone bowing before a deity when I write anything positive about Nine Inch Nails & Trent Reznor, not that I look at him that way, but this album is so significant to me. I am not sure who I would be now, without it.

This album is so powerful, so richly layered, and the emotional gamut it runs is so blatant and unapologetic, even cheesy, but Reznor's sincerity reigns supreme and there are no sour notes in this suicidal magnum opus. (That paragraph was written strictly for pull quotes.)

Was I depressed as a teen before I was exposed to Nine Inch Nails and just didn't show it because I didn't know how? Or did Nine Inch Nails give rise to a voice in me that didn't exist previously? Or was it just, you know, science? And dressing all in black and listening to Nine Inch Nails & various other industrial was how I decided to cope with the angst of puberty at 12? I don't know.

I'll say that Nine Inch Nails made it easier, though I can't really be sure. I found a lot of solace in the chainsaw guitars and I remember turning up my earphones as loud as I could bare just so I could listen closely for all the background screaming and effects. Did it encourage me, or did it really make a positive difference?

I took all my NIN albums with me on Sunday school trip, this was probably around eleven or twelve years old and I was still going to Sunday school (I was born a Quaker, which has been randomly odd or helpful at times) even though my parents hadn't taken anyone to church since I was seven. I had just gotten my first pair of Dr. Marten's, and I was so proud of them. We stayed in a cabin by Lake Arrowhead and I remember it being beautiful (the trees and the leaves and it was cold and beautiful!) and terrifying (at one point I wandered off through the trees and very briefly found myself absolutely lost amid all the samey trees and cabins) all at once, but I was so upset all the time.

At one point another kid turned my music up too loud to mess with me and they took away all my CDs. I ended up staying in bed for a whole day, completely melodramatically miserable, until they finally gave me my music back. As soon as I listened to a couple tracks I was all better, back downstair_e_s, listening to their hushed whispers about what a weirdo I was. (If I remember correctly, on that church trip, the girls dressed up me and another guy as chicks out of boredom. Unconventional, it was. There are pictures somewhere. I had long hair and a sad look in my eyes, so I could work it better, you know. [That sentence could be taken horridly out of context. No one touched me, I swear.])

I do look back on myself at that age and wonder what my problem was. I'm still a depressive person now, it comes and goes, but now I've got things I can be upset about now. Back then I have no fucking clue what I was so upset about. I guess it was science.

If I could go back in time I would wave The Downward Spiral in my face and say, "This is good stuff and thank you for listening to it, but stop acting like such a fucking pussy, Jesus Christ."

Site Note: This is Day 1 of "Youth Week" in which I'll be picking songs that relate to my, uh, youth, duh. Don't be dumb. Originally I was like, "Oh my god, I have to plan this all sick, and have a clear progression through the years of my life," but after I sat in front of iTunes trying to pick songs and keep all the stories straight in my head for about 20 minutes I was more like, "Oh, wow, fuck this shit, I just want to write something and go do something else!"

P.S. There's a 5.1 mix of this album that is simply incredible and is a great way to stress test your surround sound system. It is sonic bliss and all the "gimmicky" uses of having rear channels are absolutely sublime. Reznor uses the rear channels to great effect on March of the Pigs. Totally adds to the already existing feeling of the music. The guy is a fucking genius. It's too bad his music has sucked pretty consistently since The Fragile.