Last Christmas, I made the foolish mistake of packing my Deluxe Edition copy of The Downward Spiral on a trip. It was stolen, along with two other CD’s: another NIN, and a Yoko Kanno — both vexing losses, but the loss of DEDS was especially sad because it was a birthday gift from Troy, who always gives the best. (Oh, and a wireless card. They stole that, too.)
I found a copy of The Fragile shortly thereafter, it being the most urgent of my needs. I held off looking for another copy of the DEDS, already having both The Downward Spiral and Further Down The Spiral in my possession (from whence comes much of the Disc Two special content). But tonight I decided to rip my copy of The Downward Spiral into iTunes, so I could carry it around with me. After all, sometimes you really just need it. (Especially in the winter. It’s a good winter record.)
So I put my copy in the computer, give it some time, and go back to listen. Oh, “Mr. Self-Destruct,” I thought, Mama missed you real bad.
MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF SKIPS.
I don’t know if it’s the disc, or my machine, or what. But it’s FULL OF SKIPS.
*Actually it isn’t. Listening to it once the whole record had been imported dispelled the problem. Silly me. Also, “Mr. Self-Destruct” is still an excellent song. He takes you where you want to go. He gives you all you need to know.
The only saving grace here is that my copy of Still is fine. I’d probably burst into tears on the spot if I lost that record.
It’s tragic that there’s no official video for this song, but this fanvid does it justice:
In short, I need that DEDS record pronto.