Style: Industrial and various other genres... really just NIN
Primary Emotions/Themes: Self destruction, interpersonal relationships
Thoughts: Four notes, each a semitone off of each other repeating in ascending order... over and over and over again. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
That's the start of The Fragile. Somewhat Damaged begins out with one of the most basic guitar "riffs" I've ever heard in my life. It is so basic that it even had me questioning "how is this going to end up being a good song?" the first time I put The Fragile CD in my player.
Trent Reznor being who he is, was able to take something so basic, so benign and make it into one of the most aggressive songs in my collection. Like so many things that start simple it grows, more instruments are layered on top, someone is beating the hell out of floor toms, electronics are sprinkled in. More and more comes in until the song has built up into the colossal swell by the time the vocals come in. But we're still not even close to done.
The song continues to build with electric guitars, high amounts of distortion and noise are now starting to weave their way in. Everything is becoming harder to follow. Trent's voice is becoming more and more unhinged, more anger, more vitriol. Even with all this we're still working with those four notes that started the album... same notes, same song.
So how is Somewhat Damaged a good song? If it's not obvious yet, it manages to take something simple and create something complex and compelling form it. Without changing it's core it's able to start simple and end up as one of the most pissed off and deplorable vocal deliveries I've ever heard. Listen to Trent scream "WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU??" at the end and tell me that's not someone who's at the end of their rope and is ready to end it all.
That's a lot of words for the opening song, but it's needed to build a basic understanding of just how deep and complex this album is. That's the first of twenty three (!!) songs on this album. Each of them are incredibly complex and nuanced. Some softer (the title track), some louder (Starfuckers), some strange (Pilgrimage), some catchy (We're in this Together), some incredibly atmospheric (The Great Below), and some sinister (The Wretched), and some absolutely broken (Ripe, With Decay).
There is so much here it's going to be impossible to even scratch the surface in a reasonable amount of space. It would be thousands upon thousands of words to do this album actual justice, so I'm going to just leave it at that.
The Fragile is arguably Trent's best album. He's perfected his art at this point, it is only his sound here. Nothing else sounds like this. The way the tracks flow, the way the blend together. The way the album becomes a singular entity despite the versatility. It all just fucking works. It's too good to pass up, and even now 25 years later it sounds as fresh as the day it came out. Absolutely. Fucking. Essential.
Written February 2nd 2024
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