Nine Inch Nails

The Fragile (Nothing)
by Michael McCarthy

I was looking forward to this double album almost as much as the portion of the so-called Goth crowd that insists on wallowing in Mr. Reznor’s pain until I heard the first single, “The Day the World Went Away.” For once, I really did feel Mr. Reznor’s pain – because that song was so unrealized that I felt all the pain and frustration he must’ve had in the studio during recent years upon hearing it. To my ears, it sounded like an underproduced demo for what could have been a moving song if the artist working on it hadn’t cut his ear off and later hung himself while masturbating.

But, hey, Mr. Reznor has managed to bring his songs to their full potential in the past, so I bought the single anyway. Luckily, because the remix of “The Day…” was no better than the original, it included a song called “Starfuckers, Inc.”. And what a gem that was; a fast, furious fuck off with an interpolation of “You’re So Vain” and Kiss dismissing an audience at the end just to be sure the listener realized there was a bit of satire in the mix. Ah, yes, upon hearing that tune, I was looking forward to The Fragile again.

But a few days before its release, radio started playing other songs and my interest went even lower than when I first heard “The Day…” Now that I finally own it and have suffered through such tired tunes as “The Frail” and “Into the Void,” I find myself wishing Mr. Reznor had spared us a few of his thoughts, or at least spent a few more years in the studio. The only thing surprising here is that he’s actually allowing us to hear some of this, being that he’s always had such high standards in the past. If he’d released a 10 song CD with the best songs from these sessions, I would be singing its praise because there are nearly that many impressive songs on hand, the best being “We’re In This Together,” but… the diamonds are buried pretty deep in shit and it’s painful to dig through.