Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
Critic Score
Based on 8 reviews
1999 Ratings: #82 / 164
User Score
1999 Rank: #10All Time: #300
Liked by 402 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

91
Entertainment Weekly
Right now, hard rock simply doesn’t get any smarter, harder, or more ambitious than this.
90
AllMusic

It's easy to tell where the time went -- Reznor's music is immaculately crafted and arranged, with every note and nuance gliding into the next -- but he spent more time constructing surfaces than songs. Those surfaces can be enticing but since it's just surface, The Fragile winds up being vaguely unsatisfying.

90
SPIN
The Fragile offers no insights into how people survive their assault of their own thoughts, but such wisdom has no place within Reznor´s compositions. He lives to be haunted. We´re lucky he keeps hammering away inside that unquiet mind.
80
Rolling Stone

But like the rest of The Fragile, it's New Wave with its finger on the trigger. Reznor doesn't want to get "Closer" here – he wants to armor himself behind a wall of noise.

60
Q Magazine
Although he’ll never quite dispel the suspicion of charlatan and Emperor’s New Clothes that surround him, Trent Reznor deserves at least some of the attention he so craves.
50
NME
Here comes Trent, knocking at your door, asking for your misery. And all you can say is, ‘Sorry, already given’, and send him away. The Goth. The Outdated. The Ever So Slightly Foolish.
20
Pitchfork

The Fragile is simply Music for 'The Elder for the digital age.

MrMercury7
85

"The Fragile is simply Music for The Elder for the digital age."

Oh fuck off pitchfork, your simply the buzzfeed of music.

Fav Tracks: Somewhat Damaged, The Day the World Went Away, We're in This Together, La Mer, Into the Void
Least Fav: Pilgrimage

andiov1
79

The original Pitchfork review for this is by far the worst pretentious music review I've ever read, hands down.

The writer for Pitchfork in this case is also the same guy who was absolutely jizzing over Kid A in another review just a year later (like I enjoy that album as well but calm down, you sound like you want to fuck the shit out of Thom Yorke and it's giving me secondhand embarrassment just reading it ).

What really rattled me is his comparison of The Fragile to Kiss's "Music For ... read more

UltimateLifeFrm
90

Thanks to @avery_backup for the recommendation!

The Fragile is the 3rd album from American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released in September 1999. It was recorded at Nothing, New Orleans throughout January 1997 - February 1999.

The band were aiming to depart from the distorted production of their 1994 predecessor The Downward Spiral; the album incorporates elements of ambient & electronic music. It also retains similar lyrical content from their predecessor (such as depression ... read more

80

The first disk was incredibly strong with an incredible flow and cohesion that made it feel like 10 minutes, but the second half of this album really broke that cohesion and flow and made it feel like the songs were kind of just randomly picked, on top of just being weaker than the songs in the first half. The production on this album is incredible though, and the chaotic moments really work with every detail feeling clear and obvious. The vocals are also a massive standout carrying a lot of ... read more

eerie
69

This is a very hot take but, I just can't see how the fragile is better than the downward spiral. It drags on for far too long and some of the instrumentals don't interest me. I do really like some songs off this album but a lot of these songs I would just never go back to.
Right now It will sit around the 60s.

Favourite Tracks: Into The Void, Were In This Together, The Great Below

Least Favourite: Ripe (I really don't like it as an outro)

TheSenate
96

RE-REVIEW: old complaints are resolved

The Fragile is a journey to say the least. Whilst The Downward Spiral is more of a story of a man's life going to waste and eventually self destruction, this is a slower burner, starting 'Somewhat Damaged' before getting trapped in an endless cycle of hopelessness. And before, my major complaint was that there were too many interludes and instrumentals, but I disagree now. Everything seems like it adds something to the story (except I'm Looking Forward ... read more

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Added on: September 13, 2012