Wiki
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Release Date
1 January 1999
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Length
23 tracks
The Fragile (also known as Halo 14), released on September 21, 1999, is the fourth studio album by Nine Inch Nails. The album features a rich array of electronic beats, ambient noise, and heavy guitar. While it received critical acclaim from many, it did not receive the commercial success that its predecessor, The Downward Spiral, did (attributed variously to the difference in musical climate, and insufficient promotion by Interscope Records).
Prior to its release, the single The Day The World Went Away came out on July 20; following The Fragile, We're In This Together was released in three parts on December 14. A collection featuring several remixes and new material from The Fragile was released as Things Falling Apart on November 21, 2000.
Reznor described The Fragile in a 1999 interview: "There's a general theme to the album of systems failing and things sort of falling apart. In keeping with the idea of making everything sound a little broken, I chose stringed instruments because they're imperfect by nature. Although it may not sound like it, most of the album is actually guitar - and that includes the orchestral sounds and weird melodic lines. When it came to instruments that I didn't really know how to play - like the ukulele or the slide guitar - we were able to get some really interesting sounds by making the studio the main instrument."
In terms of narrative, the album is an unofficial continuation of The Downward Spiral. Reznor compares the lyrical content of the two albums: "I wanted this album to sound like there was something inherently flawed in the situation, like someone struggling to put the pieces together. Downward Spiral was about peeling off layers and arriving at a naked, ugly end. This album starts at the end, then attempts to create order from chaos, but never reaches the goal. It’s probably a bleaker album because it arrives back where it starts — the same emotion. The album begins "Somewhat Damaged" and ends "Ripe (With Decay)"."
In one interview, Alan Moulder stated that the album started out with 173 different pieces or musical ideas, and the cover of Gary Numan's "Metal" had been completed when the album sessions began. He also stated in a different interview that 120 songs were recorded, so it is likely that some of the 173 pieces were merely seeds of inspiration that were never developed into anything usable. The orginal large amount of song ideas was evidently whittled down before they even reached the demo stage, as Reznor stated in a 2000 interview that he demoed 47 songs, which he then chose from when deciding which ones to write lyrics for.
During a podcast with Skinny Puppy's cEvin Key, Danny Lohner revealed that Reznor was inspired by Tom Waits' Bone Machine when making The Fragile, and that "Somewhat Damaged" was written and originally demoed around the time of "The Perfect Drug". Bone Machine's use of Harry Partch-style found object percussion influenced the unique percussion on certain parts of the album.
Reznor stated in an interview with Guitar World that My Bloody Valentine and their album Loveless (also produced by Moulder) were influences during the recording. He also revealed that the majority of the guitar sounds on the album were played on a Parker Fly guitar, utilizing its piezo pickup. This guitar sound was also likely used on "The Perfect Drug" and later showed up on some tracks from With Teeth.
Alan Moulder wrote for the Fragility Tour program about the songwriting process: "I got involved pretty early on. Trent had one song written and about 15 demos. He also had about sixty 'bits,' varying from a riff or noise loop to a more evolved drum pattern with a bass or guitar line. We sorted through these and decided which ones to work on. Sometimes we combined drums from one piece with a guitar loop from another and a piano piece from another to make one new track.
We also started a lot of tracks from scratch. This is unusual as I am normally brought in at a later stage when the songs have been written. It was great to be involved from the 'blank canvas' stage. We would go through the tracks and pick one to work on. Then we'd spend a couple of days evolving that and messing around with the structure, adding new sections and instrumentation.
Because there was so much material to work on we never labored over anything, taking the attitude that if something wasn't happening, or we'd reached a block, we would move on to the next track. We wouldn't listen back to what we had done to the tracks for weeks. Because we had been working quickly and constantly moving on, listening back later to what we had done was always a surprise. We quite often had forgotten what we had done. Every time we listened back, we got excited, as it was always a lot better than we remembered. We would carry on doing that and some tracks would get eliminated as we went on until Trent had vocal ideas and lyrics. These songs would be completed and not listened to for a couple of weeks to see if the ideas stood the test of time. If we were happy, we would start to mix the song, adding and refining….even lengthening or changing the structure as we mixed.
As my time on the album spanned over 2 years, it is difficult to describe a typical day, since that varied as we progressed. At the beginning, though, there were different types of days depending on how Trent was feeling. At this stage a lot of time was spent writing and creating songs. Obviously it is impossible for anybody to be in songwriting mode every day without going stale. So, to keep creativity up and vary things a little, we would have 'Art Days,' as they were referred to. This would involve forgetting about being tied down to creating within the usual 'song' structure and Trent would do anything that his mood took. Good examples of some things that came out of that way of working was "La Mer" and "The Day The World Went Away".
Other days, if Trent didn't feel like writing, we would have 'Sound Creating' days. This could involve starting the day off with a shopping trip to a music shop. One time we decided to make unusual percussion tracks. We went and bought lots of percussion instruments; the stranger the better. Then back at the studio these were put in a room with other things such as boxes, road signs, trash cans, water bottles, spades and badly tuned drums. Trent would then hit whatever took his fancy and would make a rhythm out of it. We got lots of great rhythm tracks from this that songs were written on top of, for example "The Fragile" and "I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally"."
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