‘The Fragile’: The album Trent Reznor never wanted to make again
It’s every artist’s job to make sure that every one of their songs does justice to what their fans want. Even if the fans themselves don’t know what to expect from each album, it’s better to leave them stunned than to come up with something that might bore them to tears. But there’s a way to go too far in the other direction as well, and Trent Reznor knew that some of his best records were best left in the past.
From day one, though, Reznor was never one to sort out what fans shouldn’t hear. He was always working on different tracks for his projects, and even if not all of them got released in the correct format, the whole reason why projects like the Ghosts series exist is that fans who are producers can do what they want with the tracks later.
That might have been seen as a red flag for any record label, but Reznor had earned the right not to play by their rules by the 2000s. He had already put out some of the greatest industrial rock of the 1990s, and since he was moving on into the world of film scoring, he was starting to see what music could mean to him outside of the typical single structure or the confines of an album.
But Reznor’s pieces have always been slightly cinematic. The best songs on The Downward Spiral are like watching a psychological thriller come to life in the headphones, and Broken might be one of the few albums that actually sounds like it wants to murder their listener, or at least give them a good enough kicking that they might soil themselves out of fear.
While nothing was going to eclipse The Downward Spiral, Reznor did give it his best shot on The Fragile. Despite being one of the longest projects he had ever made at almost feature length, Reznor sculpted the perfect companion piece to his dark masterpiece, placing the narrator in the age of excess and doing everything he can to live up to his reputation as one of the darkest musicians on the hit parade.
Still, it’s hard for Reznor to look at some of the posturing and fluff on the album and not see himself trying to do too much all at once, saying, “I’m not just saying this to justify it, but it’s an accurate a snapshot of my life at that time. I made the best record I could, with the tools available and I was terrified, I was overcompensating. I’m proud of it. It was made in insane circumstances, and the effort that went into it… it was camaraderie-filled. But I hope I never make a record like that again.”
Given the dark headspace in which The Downward Spiral was conceived, it’s easy to see why Reznor is so hesitant when talking about The Fragile. There are moments that offer a bit more light than before, like ‘We’re In This Together,’ but given his connections with people like Marilyn Manson around the same time, ‘Starfuckers Inc’ encapsulates all of the toxic aspects of the industrial scene that Reznor needed to let go.
By the time With Teeth came out years later, Reznor was clearly a much different person than the man who wanted to demolish everything he could during Woodstock 1994. He had grown into someone happy to have survived his 20s, and now that he had made it to the other side, he was both proud of his work and happy to close that chapter of his life.
