Mental health issues have made it hard for me to engage with the thread of late, so apologies for that - Iām listening, but Iām finding it increasingly hard to say something meaningful about music lately, let alone talk about personal feelings and history.
However
has blown my mind. I genuinely canāt believe you feel that way. Iāve always felt The Perfect Drug was shackles off, every idea considered, throw it at the wall till the wall falls down, a total drugged out drum & bass fever dream put down on wax. It is unfettered madness and a horrifying glimpse into Trentās mindset and excess at the time, and somehow at the same time itās a thrill-ride wholly uninterested in convention. Without it, The Fragile doesnāt exist; an album that takes 2 hours to accomplish what TPD does in 6 minutes. That it was written in less than a week in time for David Lynchās Lost Highway, still one of the most unfathomable and yet brilliant movies ever made, gives it all the more heft.
I unapologetically love it; top 5 NIN song. I know Trent hated it for a long time but I think heās come round on it in the last few years.
Into the Void is not only top 5 all time NIN songs, but probably my number 1. That bass line is radioactive waste-filthy, and the hyper-close up music video weirdly bolstered my developing bisexuality. I think itās the teeth.
I fucking love it when Trent feels the funk. He does it so much better than he ought to.
And not only does that bass riff work so well in Into the Void as discussed above, it also works equally well and in a completely different way in Le Mer.
The use of these recurring motifs along with the use of polymetre, less common time signatures, polyrhythm, shifting measures and even a one off random dropped beat are all reasons why I continue to love this album as much as I did back in 99.
Yeah, itās a no from me. Nothing wrong with any of the songs, but an album has no business being this long. Had no interest in getting it when it came out for that reason, and while Iāve listened to it in full a couple of times over the last 3 decades, itās only out of a sense of duty to the task Iād set myself (like now) of working my way through the NiN back catalogue.
Itās a misnomer to call it a double album. Most double albums prior to the CD age could fit on the one CD. The Fragile is a double CD. Full of songs that consist of Trent doing Trent, and which are fine enough in their own right but start to get a bit of ho-hum when piled on top of each other, with nary a banger outside Starfuckers to change it up. Replace just about any other song with The Perfect Drug, and the album would be better overall. Replace any other 10 songs with The Perfect Drug and itād probably be a very decent album.
Length is an artistic choice like anything else. When it works, it works. In this case it absolutely works for me but can see it contributing to the marmite nature of the project.
I mean, 2 hours of mid-tempo dirge with no big singles is definitely a tough sellā¦ but there is so much to love in the texture and weird atmosphere of it that I absolutely adore spending the time with it
As much as I love the album I canāt say it was ever something Iād listen in itās entirety in one sitting. Probably easier to do in the age of streaming but I still approach it like a double CD as mentioned above.
Bought it on day of release, rinsed it, know it inside out. I think itās genuinely a modern classic and sonically incredible.
BUTā¦ I had a few life complications at the time it came out and over time it just became too much. I get why people say the lyrics are silly, I took them all to heart. (Big gun man song is rubbish and unnecessary though)
So basically I stopped listening to it and got off the NIN train for a while. To the extent my oldest university mate and still-current NIN gig companion came to London to see them, stayed at mine and I didnāt go. Blimey.
I got back on the train for reasons unknown at With Teeth so the next few releases are the only ones I bought/caught up on after the event:
FURTHER DOWN THE SPIRAL
it baffles me that people like this and donāt like Fixed. This isā¦ okay. Sounds like any other remix album, in a way that I genuinely donāt think Fixed does - letās agree to disagree. Thereās a couple of good songs and I quite like the squeaky door effect on the first track but itās quite long and samey.
PERFECT DRUG
Yeah this passed me by and I donāt really like it.
THE FRAGILE
This is really great (Starfuckers Inc excepted) but I donāt listen to it much, my loss. I am sure I read an article in Kerrang! or something back in the day - an anniversary story or something - that said Trent was so all over the place battling his demons recording it that the producer basically constructed the songs/album from the rough sketches of songs Trent came up with. That would explain why there are repeated motifs throughout, but Iāve never been able to find the article again so maybe I made it up. A good story anyway, even if it isnāt true.
My other reflection is that while it might be a bit ābasicā, Weāre in this together. is one my favourite songs of theirs. During lockdown they made a t shirt of it, with 2022 on it. I bought it and wore it all the time then, now itās a bit depressing to think back to that time.
I am sure I read an article in Kerrang! or something back in the day - an anniversary story or something - that said Trent was so all over the place battling his demons recording it that the producer basically constructed the songs/album from the rough sketches of songs Trent came up with. That would explain why there are repeated motifs throughout, but Iāve never been able to find the article again so maybe I made it up. A good story anyway, even if it isnāt true.
Bob Ezrin is credited in the liner notes as āproviding final continuity and flowā. In his words:
Trent was anything but brain addled at the time we were completing the Fragile. He was brilliant and feverishly recording and mixing in 3 rooms at the same time to complete the project on time for its scheduled release. What he had realized was that heād created a work that was much longer than was practical to release and that wasnāt quite hanging together the way he had hoped when he created its individual parts. Remember, there are thousands of bits of music and lyric that went into this record and they were recorded asynchronously. So he called me for help. Luckily, I had just come off another project and was able to head to New Orleans immediatelyāsupposedly for a few days.
My job was to take all of this work and reorganize it to more practically and effectively tell the story that originally generated all these bits. Sort of like editing a film. Trent had āshotā more than he needed and it wasnāt hanging together the way he wanted. But he was also tied to the other studios recording and mixing while this was going on so he needed someone he trusted to come in and take over the āeditingā process and help his āfilmā hang together better.
And it was a totally thrilling process. We had SO much stuff and so much to say but we needed to tighten it up and review the pacing etc. So we were literally working round the clock for what turned out to be weeks until we finally nailed it and I was able to go home.
I loved working with him - and his whole team in fact - on this project. It just increased my respect for him as an artist and a man.
Speaking of producers, Dr Dre is credited with āmixing assistanceā on Even Deeper.
Bob Eaton it should be noted co-produced The Wall with Pink Floyd, so had some significant experience in wrangling hours of forbidding bleakness into digestible shapes.
If I get the chance I need to reread the making of companion book that came with my vinyl triple album version a few years ago. Has quite a lot from Ezrin on the process as I remember
I remember Iād travelled down to London on the train to visit a friend for the weekend and The Fragile had recently come out and I had it on my discman on the train down there and I can quite vividly remember having it in my ears as I was travelling overground on a tube, which is remarkable as I have almost no memory of the rest of that weekend!
It grabbed me way more immediately than TDS had but then my music tastes had changed quite a lot in those intervening five and a half years and I had gone back to TDS and it had grown a lot in my affections.
I have never had an issue with The Fragileās length, in fact it was a boon when it was soundtracking my trip to the capital. But Iāve found it is very much a matter of environment, earlier this week I listened to disc 1 on headphones at home and it was superb, huge and enveloping. But by the time it finished it was getting late so I ended up listening to disc 2 on streaming in the car on the way to work the next day, and I enjoyed it far less. Parts seemed a bit, dare I say it, dull which I have certainly never felt before so I really need to have another listen at home on headphones just to confirm it was just the wrong time/place to listen
