The Downward Road is the third album by Canadian power pop band The Pursuit of Happiness, released in 1993.

[2] The album cover has several versions with different coloured backgrounds (red, blue, yellow and others).

For the recording of The Downward Road, the band spent nearly three months in Los Angeles under the direction of producer Ed Stasium.

The recording process marked a departure from the band's first two albums, Love Junk and One Sided Story, which were recorded in ten days and two and a half weeks, respectively, at Todd Rundgren's Utopia Sound Studios in Lake Hill, New York.

"[3] The two-and-a-half-year interval between the release of The Downward Road and the band's previous effort, One Sided Story, was due to several factors, including the band's changing labels from Chrysalis to Mercury, waiting for producer Stasium to become available, and - finally - Mercury's shelving of the album for six months so it could be released in the new year.