The Fragile is the quintessential Nine Inch Nails album to me. Most would say The Downward Spiral, which I suppose is really the truth of it. I didn't really get into NIN until TPD era, being enthralled with the music video and a fan of Marilyn Manson at that point, something introduced to me by high school friends. I bought the only albums available to me in my relatively small town, which were Broken and Further Down the Spiral. (Oddly, I bought these at Walmart and always found it interesting that a) they even sold these and b) they weren't edited, something I had fallen victim to previously). We had a Sam Goody (anybody remember those?) and a local record store called Plan 9 at the time but no NIN in stock at the time for reasons unknown. Broken hooked me in, but I found FDTS strange. It made more sense later when I discovered it was a remix album of TDS.

ANYWAY, Sam Goody had posters up for The Fragile prior to it's release and I remember picking up TDTWWA single prior to getting my hands on the actual album. The single was interesting, but I wasn't truly obsessed until I picked up the album and heard Somewhat Damaged. I waited to hear the album until I got home and had the place to myself. I had a decent Sony shelf system in a cramped but livable bedroom in a townhouse my mom had gotten after my parents divorced. There was barely enough room to walk in the room, and I remember crawling across my bed to sit with my back again the wall and listen.

Mind blown is the best way to describe it. It was tempting to skip TDDWA as I'd heard it multiple times at that point but decided to hear the whole album in the first sitting. I remember being surprised at The Frail, and falling in love with WITT and JLYI. Pilgrimage was an eyebrow raiser - just wasn't expecting that. Finished the Left disc and literally just started it over. Didn't listen to the Right disc for like two days. I would say I regret that in retrospect but I don't. It was nice days later to have basically a whole other album to absorb.

I was driving my Mom's Bronco II at the time as my car was in the shop, so I did this crazy thing called copying the CD to a cassette so I could listen in her car. This I do regret, as they totally had the cassette version at the record store, I just didn't realize there would be a difference. Same with the vinyl version, as we totally had a record player. But, again, later day discoveries that made going back even better, if expensive. (eBay vinyl purchase was not cheap). I shouldn't complain though, as I got all the WITT singles for a steal at this short lived record store called CoCo's or something to that effect. Reminds me of a Tower Records. Same with the Into the Void single - didn't even think anything of them when I bought them.

Still my favorite NIN album. I would go through different phases of which side I preferred, which songs were my favorite, etc. The release of Deviations 1 brought back memories of discovering 10 Miles High and The New Flesh and Appendage and making a mix CD that fit them all in. I even mixed in 10 Miles High with the "hidden" outro of Mark Has Been Made, which took me longer to figure out how to do than it should have. There's basically no other album I can think of that I put that much effort into listening to. I invested in a CD changer for literally no other reason than to be able to hear both discs without having to get up and switch discs.