thevoid99's Full Review: The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails
Throughout the history of rock n’ roll, one of the most common releases in the record industry is the double album. The double album gave music fans not only more music but also a side of the band or artist’s creative side whether it’s self-indulgent or a highly inspired moment. From the Beatles 1968 self-titled masterpiece known as The White Album to other classic double albums like The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, The Clash’s London Calling, Prince’s Sign O’ The Times, The Who’s Tommy, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and the Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness. Although double albums can be expensive and a risky product to sell, they sometimes bring success not only in commercial terms but also on artistic terms. In 1999, Nine Inch Nails released an ambitious double album that not only gave rock music a new perspective but also a view into NIN leader Trent Reznor’s creative mind. The album was simply called The Fragile.
The Fragile is a double album of twenty-three tracks (twenty-five in the vinyl version) that aren’t just ambitious and dense but it contains a sense of imperfection, difficultly, mood, constructed, deconstructed, and yet can be satirical at times. Although The Fragile doesn’t contain the pop music elements that made Pretty Hate Machine a masterpiece nor does it contain the harsh, abrasive approach of Broken or the art-rock grandiose of The Downward Spiral, The Fragile is an album that’s more rooted in its minimalist approach rather than making it an album of easy-listening music. Instead, the music is a lot more obscure than Reznor’s previous work and although it takes an open mind to listen to it fully, it’s a wonderful journey from the first track of the first disc to the final track of the second disc.
Like every NIN release, Trent Reznor is the man behind the music of NIN and The Fragile is no exception. Helping Reznor on the production of The Fragile is Alan Moulder who previously worked with Reznor mixing the album The Downward Spiral back in 1994. Also helping Reznor with the album were his NIN cohorts, multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner and keyboardist/programmer Charlie Clouser. Also joining the NIN camp late in the sessions was former Howlin’ Maggie drummer Jerome Dillon. Also in the NIN camp were Reznor’s team of engineers and programmers that included Leo Herrera, Brian Pollock, new NIN studio cohort Keith Hillebrandt, and Dave “Rave” Ogilvie.
Also helping Reznor in the making of The Fragile was a group of session musicians and producers. In the musician’s corner, there was King Crimson/David Bowie guitarist Adrian Belew who previously contributed guitar work to The Downward Spiral along with former Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin who co-wrote Suck with Reznor, Martin Atkins, and Ministry’s Paul Barker for Atkins’ Pigface project. Other session musicians helping on The Fragile was noted David Bowie pianist Mike Garson along with former Helmet singer/guitarist Page Hamilton, violinist/programmer Steve Duda, former Pop Will Eat Itself vocalist Clint Mansell, trumpet player Cherry Holly, and former Chic/Power Station drummer Tony Thompson. On the producers side, there was legendary Chicago producer Steve Albini along with legendary hip-hop producer Dr. Dre and legendary rock producer Bob Ezrin who is responsible for some of rock’s greatest ambitious albums like Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Lou Reed’s Berlin, and Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare.
Throughout the music of NIN, the synthesizer was a very common sound throughout their albums. On The Fragile, the synthesizers aren’t used very much on the album in favor of more organic instruments that are imperfect by nature like a violin, a guitar, or any type of string instruments. Reznor, who was heavily influenced by the 80s melodic underground rock bands like the Smiths, XTC, Cocteau Twins, Joy Division/New Order, and the Cure along with British noise rockers like the Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, used those influences to not only give the guitars sounds a deconstructed approach but to the point as if it’s played in the wrong way. While the guitar sounds still contains the hard-rock guitar assaults that made Broken and The Downward Spiral NIN favorites, “The Fragile” is more rooted in its melodic and deconstructed approach rather than making it feel abrasive or harsh.
Although The Fragile contains a little bit of the art-rock elements The Downward Spiral had, the record is still focused more on its melancholic mood rather than going to the pretentiousness of art-rock. One of the biggest influences on the emotional and melancholic side of music for Reznor was the Ivo-Watts Russell and John Fryer cover project This Mortal Coil for Russell’s 4AD label. The music of This Mortal Coil featured covers of songs by the Byrds, Big Star, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, Rain Parade, Chris Bell, and other obscure acts that are interpreted into a more melancholic and ethereal approach that is suitable to listen to on a rainy day. Reznor used those influences on The Fragile by putting more piano-based music rather than using the synthesizer since he felt putting a synthesizer sound would be highly predictable and clichéd at the same time.
During the making of that album with producer Alan Moulder, Reznor enlisted the help of rock producer Bob Ezrin. Ezrin’s role was to give Reznor the direction The Fragile needed which then turned into a double album rather a one-disc record. Reznor who is a fan of double albums, notably Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Prince’s Sign O’ The Times, used the musical diversity and density of the double album for The Fragile to make it balanced and have a sense of consistency as if a reader is reading a book from beginning to end. While Reznor used the diversity of Prince’s Sign O’ The Times and the ambitiousness of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, he turned to another double album for help. The Beatles 1968 self-titled release known as The White Album. Though Reznor admitted in early interviews he wasn’t a fan of the pop music giants, The White Album gave Reznor the musicality that he needed since that album contains music that was melodic or at times, chaotic.
Finally, another piece of the making of The Fragile that made it unique was Trent Reznor’s lyrics. Though in the past, Reznor’s lyrics were often bleak and depressing since it contained lyrics of alienation, self-destruction, and anger. The lyrics to The Fragile strayed away from some of those lyrical formats in favor of Reznor’s exploration of grief, loss, frustration, and coming to terms with death while trying to find a sense of optimism. The lyrics reflected Reznor’s fallout with Marilyn Manson along with his feeling of disillusionment about making music and the death of the grandmother who raised him as a child. The lyrical part of the album is often compared not only to the bleak and alienating lyrics of Pink Floyd’s The Wall written by Roger Waters but also the sad and often coming-of-age lyrics of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album. Though the lyrics of The Fragile also have a coming-of-age format, it’s more towards a young man becoming wiser as he begins to understand his emotions a lot better while trying to find something that is positive in the end.
Although The Fragile took two years to complete and didn’t contain a lot the industrial music sound he made famous, Trent Reznor and his cohorts made an album that is layered in its musicality rather than being a long and ambitious album. The Fragile is an album that can be beautiful but difficult or sometimes chaotic yet subtle. There are a million emotions or approach that’s on The Fragile and that’s what makes it one of the most interesting releases of the 1990s. For Nine Inch Nails, it’s another masterpiece Trent Reznor and his cohorts have created.
Left Disc:
The album starts off with the first track titled Somewhat Damaged which is written by Reznor and NIN multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner. The song starts off with grinding but imperfect guitar riffs from Reznor and Lohner for about twenty seconds when a rhythmic drum track comes in along with pulsating synthesizer tracks come in to accompany Reznor’s bleak lyrics of “So impressed with all you do/Tried so hard to be like you/Flew too high and burn the wing/Lost my faith in everything”. After the second verse, the song builds up to become louder and more aggressive as the drum tracks go from a mid-tempo rhythm to a more menacing rhythm as if it’s acting like a machine gun as Reznor sings “Made the choice to go away/Drink the fountain of decay/Tear a hole exquisite red/F*ck the rest and stab it dead”.
As Reznor keeps the singing the verse of “Broken bruised, forgotten sore/Too f*cked up to care anymore/Poisoned to my rotten core/Too f*cked up to care anymore”, the guitar tracks become more maniacal as if a monster was ready to kill somebody. Then, a quiet instrumental breaks comes in as Reznor sings more lyrics of disillusionment and frustration as he sings “How could I ever think/It’s funny how everything you swore would/never change is different/now like you said you and me make it/Through didn’t quite fell apart/Where the f*ck where you”.
After the guitar grinds of Somewhat Damaged start to close, the next comes in which is the ominous The Day The World Went Away. Opened up with an atmospheric synthesizer track that accompanies slow but powerful guitar tracks as it takes the song to a symphonic yet complex level that doesn’t feature any percussive sounds nor any old-school NIN song structures. As the instruments finish their part, Reznor sings the lyrics of “I’d listen to the words he’d say/But in his voice, I heard decay/The plastic face forced to portray/All the insides left cold and gray/There is a place that still remains/It eats the fear, it eats the pain/The sweetest price he’ll have to pay/The day the whole world went away” as there is a quiet ukulele strum at the end of Reznor’s vocals. The song then returns to its ominous musical setting as Reznor and a group of female singers from near-by watering holes in New Orleans who are known as the Buddha Debutante Choir sings the “Na Na Nah” part of the song.
The next track is the first of six instrumental tracks on the album. The Frail is a melancholy piano piece performed by Reznor that is reminiscent of the ethereal, mood music of This Mortal Coil as Reznor shows his classical side that wasn’t shown a lot in his previous albums. The Frail then leads into The Wretched where it’s driven by its melancholy piano riff and pulsating beats as Reznor sings lyrics of “Just a reflection/Just a glimpse/Just a little reminder/Of all the what abouts/And all the might have/could have beens” that reveals Reznor’s mistakes and disappointments he made as a person. When he then sings the lyrics of “It didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to/It didn’t turn out the way you wanted, did it?” which then leads the chorus of “Now, you know/This is what it feels like/Now, you know/This is what it feels like” as the song becomes harder with its powerful drums and fuzzy guitars. Reznor sings the second verse of the song as he explores the theme of disappointment of “Stuck in this hole with the sh*t and the p*ss/And it’s hard to believe, it could come down to this/Back to the beginning/Sinking/Spinning”. Reznor goes further until the hard rocking chorus where there’s a brief instrumental solo break that’s hard and leads to Reznor singing the chorus and ending the song with “You can try to stop it but it keeps on coming”.
The next song is the second single from The Fragile titled We’re In This Together that opens up with a distorted synthesizer buzz that then leads to a powerful drum track with a soft but pulsating synthesizer background in the track along with noisy guitar that leads to Reznor singing “I’ve become impossible/Holding on to when/When everything seemed to matter more/The two of us/All used and beaten up/Watching fate as it flows, down the path/We have chose”. The song then leads to its powerful chorus of “You and me/We’re in this together now/None of them can stop us now/We will make through somehow/You and me/If the world should break in two/Until the very end of me/Until the very end of you” as it features a blistering guitar track and fast, pulsating drums from new NIN drummer Jerome Dillon. Reznor then goes further into his lyrics of dissolution as he explores how his relationships fell apart along that leads to its powerful chorus and a powerful instrumental break as he sings the chorus again that leads to a melancholy coda of Reznor performing the song’s melodic structure on the piano.
The title track to The Fragile features an atmospheric buzz production as Reznor sings lyrics of “She shines/In a world full of ugliness/ She matters/When everything is meaningless/Fragile/She doesn’t see her beauty/She tries to get away/Sometimes/It’s just that nothing seems worth saving/I can’t watch her slip away” as the drum rhythm is slow and haunting. Then the tracks picks up the pace a bit with its chorus where Reznor says, “I won’t let you fall apart” a few times as he sings further about a person falling apart. Then there’s a brief break as Reznor sings “We’ll find the perfect place to go where we can run and hide/I’ll build a wall and we can keep them on the other side/…But they keep waiting…and picking…” where there’s a melodic guitar and a soft string orchestra in the background until the guitars and drums becomes a bit harder and more aggressive as Reznor sings the chorus to end the song.
The second instrumental track on the album is the complex Just Like You Imagined that features layers of instrumental parts from pianist Mike Garson who starts off with a melancholy piano track with atmospheric production backgrounds that then leads into a mid-tempo drum rhythm track and distorted synthesizer tracks. Guitar assaults from Danny Lohner and Adrian Belew comes in as Garson brings his exquisite piano playing to the mix as all the instruments play against each other as if it’s a jazz session gone psycho as the guitars, drums, piano, and the electronic production go against each other that ends with Garson’s piano track.
The next song written by Reznor and Danny Lohner is the somewhat optimistic Even Deeper that features a soft atmospheric production along with an ominous drum machine and synthesizer tracks from Danny Lohner that is haunting while renowned hip-hop producer Dr. Dre mixes Lohner tracks and the atmospheric production as Reznor sings the lyrics of “I woke up today/To find myself in the other place/With a trail of my footprints/From where I ran away/It seems everything I’ve heard/Just might be true/and you know me (well you think you do)/Sometimes, I have everything-yet I wish I felt something”. Guitar tracks come in as Reznor sings the chorus of “Do you know how far this has gone? Just how damaged have I become? When I think I can overcome/It runs even deeper”. Reznor then goes further into his lyrics including a line where he says “For the first time in my life, I felt complete/And I still want to ruin it” as he then goes into a chorus with other female singers in the background as Dre brings in a brief violin solo production in the background of the track as Reznor whispers “I’m straight/I won’t crack on my way/And I can’t turn back” as he fears he’ll fall into the wrong path again.
The third instrumental track on the album Pilgrimage shows the influence of Pink Floyd’s 1979 masterpiece The Wall on Reznor as it features a powerful yet chaotic tone to the track that features a distorted electronic production with a group of men called the Buddha Boys Choir (featuring NIN engineer Keith Hillebrandt and former Pop Will Eat Itself singer Clint Mansell) chanting “pilgrimage” as guitars and drum tracks act as a brutal piece of the track along with a loud horn solo from Cherry Holly with a group of marching percussion tracks led by Steve Duda come in the background to finish the track. Next is the industrial-blast of No, You Don’t that opens up with a powerful drum track along a distorted synthesizer track as Reznor starts to sing “Smiling in their faces/While filling up the hole/So many dirty little places/In your filthy little worn out/Broken down see through soul” as a grinding guitar accompanies his vocals until the song becomes a fast-driven industrial rock song with fast drums and speedy guitars as Reznor sings the angry song that in some ways was directed at his former friend Marilyn Manson (they briefly reconciled in 2000) by telling him about how he’s changed in some ways and he thinks he’s has everything while Reznor is saying “No, you don’t”.
The next song is a melancholy piano piece titled La Mer (that’s French for “the sea”) where Reznor plays a melodic piano track as New Orleans jazz singer Denise Milfort whispers the lyrics in French of “And when the day arrives/I’ll become the sky/And I’ll become the sea/And the sea will come to kiss me/For I am going home/Nothing can stop me now” as former Ministry drummer brings in a jazz-like drum rhythm into the song along with a funky bass track and a fuzzy guitar sound with a cello by a guy named Willie is played in the background.
The final track on the first CD of the album is the melodic-driven The Great Below that features an atmospheric synthesizer track and mix from NIN keyboardist/programmer Charlie Clouser along with an atmospheric guitar riff from Danny Lohner as they open the track. Reznor then sings the lyrics of “Staring at the sea/Will she come? Is there hope for me/After all is sad and done/Anything at any price/All of this for you/And the spoils of a wasted life/All of this for you” that then leads into an atmospheric piano break from Reznor along with Clouser and Lohner’s ethereal instrumental tracks that then leads to Reznor singing “All the world has closed her eyes/Tired faith all worn and thin/For all we could have done/And all that could have been”. The song’s tempo picks up a bit as it becomes a chilling and more symphonic track where Reznor sings “Ocean pulls me close/And whispers in my ear/The destiny I’ve chose/All becoming clear/The currents have their say/The time is drawing near/Washes me away/Makes me disappear”. Reznor’s vocals gets a bit louder as he sings “As I descend from grace/In arms of undertow/I will take my place/In the great below”. Then comes a melodic guitar solo from Adrian Belew who closes the song along a thumping drum track as Reznor sings, “I can still feel you/Even so far away”.
Right Disc:
The second CD of the album begins with a song written by Reznor, Clouser, and engineer/programmer Keith Hillebrandt titled The Way Out Is Through. The psychedelic-inspired track featured an atmospheric background of distorted bass and synthesizers from Clouser and Hillebrandt as Reznor whispers “All I’ve undergone/I will keep on” that goes for about a minute and twenty-five seconds until drum and fuzzy guitar tracks come in. The drum and guitar tracks start to build to become a menacing and louder track until the two-minute-and-forty-eight second mark the guitars and drums hit a huge climatic boom as Reznor starts to scream “Underneath it all/We feel so small/The heavens fall/But still we crawl”. At the near end of the song as the entire hard-rocking elements end, there’s a nice and quiet piano coda from Mike Garson who gives the track a melancholic end.
The next track Into The Void (not the Black Sabbath classic of the same name) is probably the most accessible track on the album with its rhythmic synthesizer and drum machine bounce from Charlie Clouser that is part-dance, part-funk as Reznor whispers “Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away” where then sings the first verse of “Talking to myself all the way to the station/Pictures in my head of the final destination/All lined up (All the ones that aren’t allowed to stay)/Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away”. Reznor then explores his own vulnerability as then keeps singing the line of “Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away” as the song takes a small atmospheric rhythm break until a distorted synthesizer hook and fuzzy guitars come in as NIN sings the famous line as Reznor finishes the song.
Where Is Everybody? is a powerful noise-driven track that includes a distorted electronic background of synthesizers and mid-tempo drum machine tracks backing Reznor’s bleak lyrics of “Did you happen to catch/Or did it happen so fast/What you thought would always last/Has passed you by” where he sings lyrics of disillusionment that leads to the chorus of “Pleading and needing and bleeding and breeding and feeding/Exceeding, where is everybody? Trying and lying/Defying, denying/Crying and dying/Where is everybody?” where he leads himself to singing his bleak lyrics and chorus that leads into a fuzzy guitar solo in the near end until it closes into as it becomes distorted and segues into a melodic-driven guitar coda track from Adrian Belew who is backed by an ominous atmospheric track.
The fourth instrumental on the album is the symphonic The Mark Has Been Made that features an ominous drum track along with a highly-melodic guitar track and a symphonic string background that is both chilling and mesmerizing that goes on for nearly two minutes when a choppy guitar break comes in to make the track a much louder and more vicious track with its Zeppelin-like drum power and distorted guitar tracks that at the end of the track, there’s a snippet of the song 10 Miles High that appears in the vinyl version of The Fragile and three-CD maxi-singles for the song We’re In This Together and the Things Falling Apart remix EP. 10 Miles High features a distorted synthesizer background track from Keith Hillebrandt as Reznor sings distortedly “I’m going to get myself high/You’ll never get inside/I swore I’d never turn to you/I’m closer all the time” as the drum and bass tracks come in along with a grinding guitar track that becomes a loud-rock track when Reznor says “I tried to get so high” and as the song ends comes an imperfect, melodic guitar coda along with Reznor and NIN chanting “Tear it all down”.
The next song Please (note: there’s a different mix of the song Please titled Please + appendage in the cassette version of The Fragile that features growling guitars, screeching vocals, and rollicking drums) that features a funky bass rhythm along with fuzzy synthesizer track and powerful drum fill as they accompany Reznor’s lyrics of “This is how/It begins/Push it away but it all comes back again/All the flesh/All the sin/There was a time when it used to mean just about everything/Just like now” that leads to the chorus of “Breathe, echoing the sound/Time starts slowing down/Sink until I drown/(Please) I don’t want to make it stop” as it’s followed by a menacing guitar solo. Reznor continues with his bleak lyrics of pain and hard-rocking sound as he finishes it with the line “Never be enough to fill me up”. The next song is celebrity-satire, industrial-rock of Starf*ckers, Inc. that features pulsating drum and synthesizer rhythm from Charlie Clouser who co-wrote the song that features references to Reznor’s protégé Marilyn Manson of “My god pouts on the cover of the magazine/My god is a shallow little b*tch trying to make the scene” along with a stab at himself with the Buddha Boys choir singing the chorus of “Starf*ckers, starf*ckers, starf*cker, inc./Starf*ckers” that features the famous Carly Simon lyrics of “You’re so vain/I bet you think this song is about/Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?” as the industrial-rocker shows Reznor’s sense of humor in the world of celebrity.
The next track is the instrumental piece Complication that is mainly a guitar-driven track that starts out with Reznor bringing a psychedelic-heavy guitar intro as Danny Lohner brings a wailing metal-driven guitar grind along with pulsating drums, bass-heavy rhythms, and noisy synthesizer tracks that sounds like someone screaming through a tube that shows Reznor’s interest in psychedelia and metal. The next song that appears on the vinyl version of The Fragile is The New Flesh. The New Flesh is a track that features a buzz-like atmosphere background with Reznor singing “I can take it/Sideways/Sometimes/Some things/Feel like/I’m on the other side/Waves/Of every feeling ever felt/…Screaming” in a partially distorted tone. The distorted background continues until the second minute where it becomes a fuzzy-guitar track with distorted scream backgrounds as Reznor sings, “I can take it” as it ends.
The next song I’m Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally is a song Reznor dedicated to his grandmother Clara Clark. The song explores Reznor’s grief over her death in his lyrics of “In the blur of serenity/Where did everything get lost? The flowers of naiveté/Buried in a layer of frost” that includes a haunting musical setting of ominous drum rhythms and brooding bass hooks along with a melancholic piano background. The drum track would later become a chilling and powerful instrument as Reznor sings the lyrics of “The smell of sunshine/I remember sometimes” and in the end of the song, Reznor sings “I’ve done all I can do/Could I please come with you? Sweet smell of sunshine/I remember sometimes”. The Big Come Down is a powerful blend of guitar imperfection and pulsating electronic production as the track includes choppy drum machine and synthesizer bleeps along with melodic guitar twangs as Reznor sings angst-ridden lyrics of “There is a game I play/Try to make myself okay/Try so hard to make the pieces all fit/Smash it apart/Just for the f*ck of it”. Reznor goes further into his frustration as he sings the chorus of “There is no place I can go, there is no way I can hide/It feels like it keeps, coming from the inside” as there’s a dark synthesizer background in the background along with a noisy guitar distortion and a wailing trumpet performance in coda of the song.
The final song on the album is Underneath It All is a frenetic track that features machine gun-sped drum machine tracks along with distorted atmospheric productions and dissonant guitar tracks as Reznor repeats the line “All I do, I can still feel you” for a few times as he then sings “Numb all through/I can still feel you/Hear your call/Underneath it all/Kill my brain/Yet, you still remain”. The guitars later become a metal-driven attack as Reznor sings “Crucified/After all I’ve died/After all I’ve tried/You are still inside”. The track becomes a powerful buzz-driven track that later becomes distorted as Reznor sings “All I do, I can still feel you” and whispers “You remain/I am stained”. The final track on the album is also the final instrumental track on the album called Ripe (With Decay) that opens up with a melodic yet dissonant guitar strum with a bass-heavy atmosphere background and an ominous piano riff from Mike Garson. The track then becomes more haunting with Garson’s exquisite piano performance and Steve Duda’s discordant violin performance along with a buzz-like production background, a brooding bass track, and a brutal guitar fuzz that ends the song along with a melodic guitar strum at the end of the track and album.
Although The Fragile didn’t become the ambitious rock album many rock fans had hoped for in world of TRL, The Fragile did however change the ways on how rock can be played and how can be more about musical substance rather than pertaining to a certain style. Trent Reznor and his cohorts created an album that wasn’t focused on its ambition or its musicality but rather a chance to show what Nine Inch Nails could do when they tread away from the industrial-rock sound that made them so famous. Sure, The Fragile wasn’t as successful or as accessible as albums like The Downward Spiral or Pretty Hate Machine were in their hey-day but The Fragile succeeds in Reznor’s ability to not only grow as a songwriter, singer, musician, and as an artist. For anyone who’s into rock music with a sense of musicality and complexity even if it’s difficult to listen to at first, The Fragile is that album and it couldn’t have been made better or as ambitious as Nine Inch Nails and its leader, Trent Reznor.
Live Shows: (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) - (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinnett Arena) - (NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street SweeperSocial Club-5/10/08 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater)
This double CD album The Fragile is very much a record meant to be listened to in one sitting. The album once again is performed with bombastic NIN mo...More at Buy.com
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