April 16 - Hurt

In a sense, this is Johnny Cash weekend. However, I will not play his originals, but rather play two album closers that he covered as part of his American Recordings series. Both of them were stellar in Cash's interpretations, but the originals are oh so good as well. The first is Nine Inch Nails' Hurt from The Downward Spiral. I didn't pick up the album right when it was released, but the year after I was living in Bergen at Fantoft Student Village, a mess of more concrete than glass, but the small apartments were still pretty cozy. It was a rainy day, which really isn't too uncommon in Bergen - the rain clouds rolling in easily stop when they reach the city's seven mountains, keeping the city covered in wetness the majority of dates (apparently an average of 202 days per year, according to Wikipedia climate data). I had a little bit of time to kill close to the bus terminal, so I walked to Marken, a very quaint little street, and found a small record store that at least used to be there.

Anyway, I do remember picking up The Downward Spiral there. The songs were brutal and more synth based than I was expecting - but I hadn't really listened much to Nine Inch Nails yet and Head Like A Hole had not reached me at that time in my life. Some tracks were standouts - Closer is still one of my absolute favorite tracks from the album - but after almost a full hour of aggression, the closing song provides a perfect ending to the album. Hurt is still incredibly painful to listen to, but for me, this pain is cathartic. Trent Reznor was reaching rock bottom when he wrote and sang Hurt, and you can clearly hear it in the lyrics.