Top 5 Fragile Tracks

[bobbie solo]

Starfuckers, Inc. (Version)
Starfuckers, Inc. (Version)
Starfuckers, Inc.
Starfuckers, Inc. (Version)
The Day the World Went Away (Porter Ricks)

get some new material buddy!

[WorzelG]

The Frail / Wretched
The Big Come Down
The Great Below
Somewhat Damaged
Just Like You Imagined

[ultimatebdp]

Sorry, I tried to narrow them down, but my list is stuck at 14 and I’m not willing to cut anymore off the list…and that’s just from the original CD tracklisting!! Just another example as to why it’s my favorite album…of all time…by any artist. Thanks, TR.

The number would significantly jump if I included +Appendage from the cassette release, 10MH and TNF from the vinyl release, b-sides from Still and Things Falling Apart, couple of tracks from Deviations 1, etc…

[EndlessLoveless]

The day the world went away
The way out is through
The new flesh (it counts imo)
WITT
The fragile/somewhat damaged (can't choose between)

[henryeatscereal]

Difficult to choose, but here we go:

1. Please
2. The Day the World went Away
3. The Way out is Through
4. The great below
5. Somewhat Damaged

[r_z]

I'd cast off...

No, you don't
Pilgrimage
Even Deeper
Where is everybody?
The big come down

[OSLIN]

I'd cast off...

No, you don't
Pilgrimage
Even Deeper
Where is everybody?
The big come down

I would cast off Starfuckers before any of these tracks.

[EndlessLoveless]

I can't imagine how so many people dislike pilgrimage. Amazing song, perfect opening song for the band to take the stage to.

[WorzelG]

In other news, I'm fucking astonished by how frequently "No, You Don't" appears on everyone's list. Same with "10 Miles High." I like both songs, sure. But if we did this list in reverse--which five songs would you cast off from the album if you absolutely had no choice but to cut five songs, they'd both be on there. This, incidentally, would be that list for me.

05. "10 Miles High"
04. "The Frail"
03. "No, You Don't"
02. "Complication"
01. "Starfuckers, Inc."

So close to facepalming an opinion with your choice of the Frail. The Wretched isn't complete without this, and I love the simple melody turning up in other places on the album.

[implanted_microchip]

Assuming we're talking songs released on one of the three original 1999 versions of the album, no "from that era" shit and no Deviations material:

Somewhat Damaged
La Mer
10 Miles High
Underneath It All
Just Like You Imagined

Restricting this list to 5 is such complete and utter bullshit BTW. There are so many that are interchangeable with one another in terms of my love for them, I think all of them aside from Starfuckers and Where is Everybody are borderline essential to the record and it's a weaker project without them, what makes many of these songs so powerful is how they flow into one another, call back to each other and interact within the larger space of the sequencing of the record to begin with and to start lopping off and isolating them takes a lot of the power out of them. Complication on its own is a neat little oddity but in context is a powerful, sweeping and doom-approaching ride into the very end of a very long, very bleak journey and Underneath it All is a weird and strange little piece in isolation but in context is the final words of someone who has completely given up hope, succumbed to the cancer that was eating away at them from the very start and completely numbed out, resigned to their fate and utterly hopeless, any and all desperation or energy in the vocals from other songs now removed and any illusions of power completely cast aside. You can't get that on its own.

I can't say which 5 I would remove because there are not 5 songs that I would want to remove.

[Kulerage]

As for songs I'd cast off:
The New Flesh
Fuck that song. Seriously.

Adding to my stockpile of thread-related astonishment/outrage, I cannot understand the relative contempt for "Where Is Everybody?" For a long, long time, that was one of my favorite tracks on the record. If I had to guess, I'd say it's still in my Top Ten.

You and me both, buddy...

[implanted_microchip]

How anybody could think The New Flesh is not the cat's pajamas is beyond me

[fillow]

Restricting this list to 5 is such complete and utter bullshit BTW. There are so many that are interchangeable with one another in terms of my love for them

This is undoubtedly true and that's why every one of such threads is fucking bullshit.

[Ribbitman]

Goddamn it. I can't take back my like of your post. Which I totally want to do because I didn't see your "New Flesh" comment. I think that's one of the best and most audacious things Nine Inch Nails has ever done. It's something like #120 on my All-Time Favorite Songs list (which, yes, I actually have and compiled to win a bet--even though doing so took me like six months). It's a motherfucking masterpiece.

EDIT: "The New Flesh" is the masterpiece. Not my list. Although, based on how invested I ended up in it, I'm certainly quite fond of it.

Let this stand in the record as my official objection.

please go into more detail

[Deepvoid]

Pretty difficult to narrow it down to 5 tracks but here goes nothing:

The Great Below
Somewhat Damaged
We're In This Together
The Big Come Down
Even Deeper

[Kulerage]

How anybody could think The New Flesh is not the cat's pajamas is beyond me

I have always found The New Flesh to be the most forgettable song from The Fragile, with not a single aspect to remember it by. However, the thingsfallingapart.com version of it is amazing.

[SM Rollinger]

Adding to my stockpile of thread-related astonishment/outrage, I cannot understand the relative contempt for "Where Is Everybody?" For a long, long time, that was one of my favorite tracks on the record. If I had to guess, I'd say it's still in my Top Ten.

Where is Everybody? is awesome and should have been a single among with No, You Dont. Both of the (Version) edits rock.

WIE should have been played live too, its a shame it wasnt, even though Closure remembers it, it was probably rehearsed tho.

While I type this, im listening to JLYI, and im glad the consensus is that song is awesome. It wasn't played at the Fragility show I went to, and im jelly of anyone who saw it at the final Wave Goodbye shows

[implanted_microchip]

I have always found The New Flesh to be the most forgettable song from The Fragile, with not a single aspect to remember it by. However, the thingsfallingapart.com version of it is amazing.

I agree that the Things Falling Apart version rules.

That said, the original has some of the darkest, most menacing lyrics in NIN's discography and one of Reznor's most sinister deliveries. It's hopeless, it's that machine-side persona from TDS brought to life again, it's thoroughly unsettling and absolutely personifies all of the ugliest, nastiest feelings of self-loathing and destruction a person can experience. It creeps in, it seeps around your ears and before you know it something that seemed to start so softly has become corrosive and punishing in its groaning, endless and dragging oppression. That static effect on Trent beginning to scream, any showing of strong emotion stifled, no amount of shouting capable of overcoming that same distorted consuming machinery that ate away at the end of Eraser, the muffled and buried-beneath-the-mix gleeful moaning about becoming something numb at the end of it all, the worst parts of someone's personality triumphant -- it's incredible to me.

[cashpiles (closed)]

Somewhat Damaged
The Day The World Went Away
The Wretched
Fragile
We're In This Together

Runner-up:
Just Like You Imagined

[Kulerage]

I agree that the Things Falling Apart version rules.

That said, the original has some of the darkest, most menacing lyrics in NIN's discography and one of Reznor's most sinister deliveries. It's hopeless, it's that machine-side persona from TDS brought to life again, it's thoroughly unsettling and absolutely personifies all of the ugliest, nastiest feelings of self-loathing and destruction a person can experience. It creeps in, it seeps around your ears and before you know it something that seemed to start so softly has become corrosive and punishing in its groaning, endless and dragging oppression. That static effect on Trent beginning to scream, any showing of strong emotion stifled, no amount of shouting capable of overcoming that same distorted consuming machinery that ate away at the end of Eraser, the muffled and buried-beneath-the-mix gleeful moaning about becoming something numb at the end of it all, the worst parts of someone's personality triumphant -- it's incredible to me.

Welp, whole new appreciation for The New Flesh. Still not a fan of the music (except the rock ending, that part is admittedly good)

[Ryan]

Anyone else get disappointed when listening to the album version of The Frail and it doesn't include that added haunting piano section from AATCHB? Same thing with Gone, Still compared to the video version.

[Halo Infinity]

01 Somewhat Damaged
02 Into The Void
03 Pilgrimage
04 I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally
05 Starfuckers, Inc.

[Ryan]

Assuming we're talking songs released on one of the three original 1999 versions of the album, no "from that era" shit and no Deviations material:

Somewhat Damaged
La Mer
10 Miles High
Underneath It All
Just Like You Imagined

Restricting this list to 5 is such complete and utter bullshit BTW. There are so many that are interchangeable with one another in terms of my love for them, I think all of them aside from Starfuckers and Where is Everybody are borderline essential to the record and it's a weaker project without them, what makes many of these songs so powerful is how they flow into one another, call back to each other and interact within the larger space of the sequencing of the record to begin with and to start lopping off and isolating them takes a lot of the power out of them. Complication on its own is a neat little oddity but in context is a powerful, sweeping and doom-approaching ride into the very end of a very long, very bleak journey and Underneath it All is a weird and strange little piece in isolation but in context is the final words of someone who has completely given up hope, succumbed to the cancer that was eating away at them from the very start and completely numbed out, resigned to their fate and utterly hopeless, any and all desperation or energy in the vocals from other songs now removed and any illusions of power completely cast aside. You can't get that on its own.

I can't say which 5 I would remove because there are not 5 songs that I would want to remove.

10 Miles High, UIA and JLYI would be in my top five as well. Actually they'd be my top three, you lovely bastard.

[SM Rollinger]

Since Deviations came out, ive found a whole new appreciation for Im Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally. Especially the percussion in the later part of the song, and that funky bass riff.

Definitely moving up on my list. When I was younger, my favorites were the obvious tracks having only had the previous 3 albums as refrence, Somewhat Damaged and The Wretched. Now that im a little older, not full of teenage agnst anymore, and my tastes have matured a little, tracks like 10 Miles High and Where is Everybody? do it for me now when I disregarded them in the past.

[InvitingmeAway]

Don't know how I'll feel about this three hours from now.

1. The Big Come Down
2. The Great Below
3. The Wretched
4. I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally
5. Even Deeper

[Tiger_Stealth]

Somewhat Damaged
The Day The World Went Away
The Wretched
We're In This Together
The Fragile

Honorable mention to the Big Come Down.

[elevenism]

I see some of you don't like restrictive lists, but I think they're fun.
Can I use TFA too, though? We wanted The Frail (Remix) played when my wife walked down the aisle, but there wasn't a sound system in the part of the church where we got married.
Hmmmm...I guess I'll do whatever the fuck I want?

Ok

1. Please
2. The Frail (version) -Eustis
3. Where Is Everybody (version) - Telefon Tel Aviv/Renholder
3.. Even Deeper
2.Just Like You Imagined
1.Somewhat Damaged

[Erneuert]

Ripe (With Decay) - “ahhhh…ahh-uhh-ahhh..” fading into those guitar chords, and then those chords abruptly coming to a halt is the best way to end an album. Always needs decay at the end.

10 Miles High

Just Like You Imagined - possibly one of the best song titles ever.

Underneath It All

The Great Below - technically the second best way to end an album. Or the first half of a two-parter.


Honorable mention: The Way Out Is Through - another best song title ever.

[trollmanen]

Ripe (With Decay) - “ahhhh…ahh-uhh-ahhh..” fading into those guitar chords, and then those chords abruptly coming to a halt is the best way to end an album. Always needs decay at the end.

Exactly! That's the only thing I don't like about the Definitive Edition, there's no Decay, which I feel is a much better ending to the album.

My Top Five, in no order:
- Somewhat Damaged
- The Day The World Went Away
- We're In This Together
- The Fragile
- Ripe (With Decay)

I'd maybe swap out Ripe (With Decay) for La Mer, The Big Come Down or In The Void. It's very hard to choose only five songs from an essentially perfect album.

[thefragile_jake]

- Even Deeper
- Where Is Everybody?
- Into the Void
- The Fragile
- La Mer

Pretty Close Top 5: The Big Come Down, We're In This Together, Complication, The Great Below, No You Don't