It's a quadruple album.
Well... I don't have much as a NIN fan, but to tell the truth, The Fragile has a really special meaning and story to me...
I had downloaded the whole discography and was hooked on W_T and TDS, and I never really gave TF a good listen, until one day I was on a bus ride from Guanajuato to my city, Hermosillo (That's like 20 hours)
So, after listening to a little bit of Rammstein, I said "Why the hell not..." and started Somewhat Damaged...
It didn't grab me completely until I listened to The Wretched and WITT... The transition, the noises, the aggression of that song...
It just blew me away.
Next thing I know, I arrive to my home and ran to my computer to read about The Fragile... It was completely incredible, to know what had happened with the website, what the buildup to the album was all about...
So, I gave WITT to my boyfriend through MSN...
He never liked anything but Still and Year Zero.
Skip a few years into the future, and I was in Monterrey, where my boyfriend lives, just looking around a music shop... as I was browsing through the N over the Rock In English section, my heart stopped for a bit and I saw it there... 450 pesos... The Argentinian Import because FUCK Mexico...
I instantly grabbed it and bought it, swiftly skipping to WITT...
So, we were in his car, going to his house, and I was singing the fuck out of myself... That was the first time I had ever seen him (We met online and were in a relationship for 1 year to that point, and we had met 5 years ago) so when the bass and piano part kicked in I couldn't help it.. I cried my eyes off.
Skip two years into the future, and we broke up... In a completely ballsy move, I left him that album and a note behind...
"I leave my fragility behind to start ripe and anew."
When he found it, he said he couldn't believe I did that, as it was my most treasured posession... I said "Well, it's just so you know I trust you with my Fragile..."
Needless to say, we are already back as a couple, and TF has become my complete favourite since then... Even moreso because he got me AATCHB on CD...
So yeah, that's my Fragile story...
(As a side note... He STILL doesn't like anything but HLAH, Wish, parts of TDS, Still and YZ.)
i've decided to try the initial, single-disc tracklists TR and co. were trying pre-Bob Ezrin (go read ninwiki). they are... well, if the final tracklist can be said to "make sense," these versions definitely make far less sense. some of the transitions are too jarring — somehow more so than many that are actually on the final sequence — but others make a lot of sense: "La Mer" and ITV obviously (same tempo/key/melody crossfade), "Complication" into "Please," TWOIT into "Starfuckers," JLYI into 10MH... but ending with "Pilgrimage" just makes for a quizzical ending. it's clear "Ripe" (with or without Decay) ends with the right feeling and statement, and that those tracklists ending with "Pilgrimage" are a jumble of half-understood pieces. by the time Ezrin cobbled them together, even if i'm not a huge fan of his sequencing, they were absorbed enough to make sense together, which was apparently impossible when the band put the work-in-progress sequences together.
it's also a far weaker album without "The Frail," WITT and "The Great Below."
Only thing I got to ad is being at The Exclusive Company (local record store, small chain) at night waiting for the release at midnight, recall it being a rather chilly night here in Milwaukee.
Oh, and...
A long time ago, I made a very long crossfaded mix that goes: WITT -> La Mer -> ITV -> The Great Collapse
It should probably be prepended with Complication, because WITT quotes a musical line from that song, but I'll leave that up to you, if you plan to recreate my experiment.
It's that time again!
Will we get a surprise DE announcement this year?
Would be awesome, but either way, going to celebrate by listening to it today (and maybe the instrumental version, too).
Wow, I can't believe this much time has gone by. I still remember going to Music Trader (a now defunct used CD shop here in San Diego) right before the TDTWWA single was coming out. The guy behind the counter was super cool about letting us check out the two promo copies of the single they had received and after talking with him for a while, he sold us the copies for $3.99 each. We left the shop, giddy as can be, and drove around for the next hour listening to the tracks. Later on we returned to a different Music Trader right before the album was being released and sadly we were not able to convince the guy behind the counter to sell us a copy early, but he did allow us to listen to it on the systems they had set up in store. I got about 2 minutes into Somewhat Damaged before I turned it off. I looked at my friend and said "no way am I going to ruin the first experience I have with this album on these shitty headphones."
A few days later we went to Tower Records at midnight and picked up our copies....
And here is a photo of the neat uncut promo poster I have for the Australian release!
Last edited by NotoriousTIMP; 09-21-2016 at 03:09 AM.
Celebrate by watching this beautiful live performance of JLYI
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Seventeen...seventeen damn years since I stood outside HMV in the rain. Waiting.
Since I flicked madly through the lyric booklet on the subway and bus, ran the block back home, plugged the headphones in, lay down on my bed, and was transported away, eyes alternately closed and watching the rain.
It was perfect. Like nothing I was expecting and everything I wanted.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 09-21-2016 at 05:25 PM.
Those were insane times during the Fragile era.
That immense, unbearable feeling of anticipation for an album following up the greatest album I've ever heard. The 9/9/99 music award performance. Watching television the night before and seeing that jarring album promo clip multiple times, feeling like that next morning would never fucking get here.
The crazy thing is, it took me YEARS to fully appreciate The Fragile and it's still one of my least favorite albums he's done. TDS, With Teeth, Year Zero, HM and PHM all do more for me as a whole. But it's a monster and it has some amazing songs on it, for sure. The Left disc especially.
WHERE'S THE DELUXE FRAGILE AT TRENT, FFS
My biggest regret is not getting into NIN before The Fragile was released. Well, probably some of those other life-altering mistakes I made growing up, too, but damnit this is more important.
I give Trent till 2019 to give us NIN fans the ultra-deluxe edition of The Fragile and if he doesn't. I shall go to his house and destroy everything including the NIN master tapes.
The Fragile was my first NIN album. It's always at the top of my desert island lists. I was 16 when this thing came out, with all the teenage drama bullshit that goes with it. I can say with no exaggeration this album saved my life.
1999 the height of fratcore limp bizkit and korn and every other piece of shit rap metal band....soundgarden and faith no more and nirvana and alice in chains were long gone (pre reunions for FNM & SG) dire times in the music world compared to 5 years earlier...and then The Rez showed up like a phoenix rising from amongst the ashes of the musical landscape with his 3 hour art rock opus...
I still keep thinking TF came out in late October/November due to the cold midnight release here in Milwaukee that night. Thought I may be exaggerating but googled it and it was in fact a chilly night for September...
https://www.wunderground.com/history...ic=&reqdb.wmo=
And also Stephen King's birthday.
Anyone was hanging on IRC Undernet #nin back when The Fragile was released?
I was in there when the world premiere of We're In This Together played on KROQ.
This bring back memories!
Ah, time flies...
My story seems a little unique (at least from what I've seen so far) so I'll share. I pre-ordered the cassette and vinyl from CDNow (you Amazon people remember CDNow?) with the plan to purchase the CD version in person. I ended up receiving the cassette version of The Fragile on Monday, so my first experience was with the cassette version/configuration.
I promptly faked sick the next day (cough, cough) and drove to the mall to pick up the CD version. I didn't have a CD player in my own car at that point, so I listened to the cassette version while driving and the CD version every other place. I remember one of the car storage compartments was strictly for the cassette because I could store it there and not have to worry about damage. Anyway, there's not really an ending to the story, just thought it unique that my first experience was with the cassette version.
I think the time leading up to The Fragile was the most exciting time to be a fan. I was in college at the time. I remember The Fragile was leaked on our internal file share before the album was out. That was before it was super common to download music and before leaks were really a thing as far as I remember. I listened to the first few seconds of each track, but held of listening to anything in full because I was so crazy into nin at the time and wanted to really experience it the right way. I then went to our local independent record store (closed now) on the Monday before the release. This was the store where I used to buy all my nin bootlegs (remember those when they were actually pressed professionally!) and the owner would sell me the official stuff the day before when he got the shipments in. I went back to the dorm skipped my classes and listened to the album with headphones from start to finish and then re-listened to all the highlights.
The entire experience of a new album was just so much better back then. Listening to the radio for hours to hear We're In This Together, getting the single for The Day The World Went Away a head of the album, the site with all the audio samples... it just seemed so much more like an event. I wish we could have those experiences again (although the Year Zero release did feel like a pretty cool event).
I was lucky enough to get Pretty Hate Machine a few months after it came out from a friend at a record store, so I’ve been able to celebrate every release thereafter. Maybe because it had been 5 years since The Downward Spiral or that I had a lot of drama surrounding me at the time, but I could NOT wait for The Fragile to be released…and it has been at the top of my list ever since. I remember picking it up at midnight (I still have the black NIN Fragile bag!), getting on the freeway, popping it in the cd player, and smiling like a kid on Christmas at the brutality and awesomeness of Somewhat Damaged. That album was exactly what I wanted/needed.
I remember Howard Stern playing 'WITT' or Into The Void' that day and talking about what a genius Reznor was..
I never understood why WITT was never played more often live. Such a shame. The Manchester performance sounded great.
all my love to you, old friend and a happy birthday. i was too young to meet you when you were released all those years ago, but i found you at the right time when i was 14 and needed it the most. first two tracks i heard were the wretched, and the great below. it was the latter that made me go out and buy my first copy of the fragile
shout out to carson for the amazing artwork etc during the fragile era!