Even Deeper # 3-Fragility Part 2Mar 12 '02 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Part 2 is a summary of Reznor's work on "The Fragile" while dealing with the musical changes in the year of 1998. Trent Reznor Enters The World of Fragility: 1998-1999 As Trent Reznor recovered from the death of his grandmother and the depression that loomed over him in 1997, he was finally ready to work on his most ambitious and challenging record to date. Helping Reznor to co-produce the album was Alan Moulder who had previously worked with NIN on “The Downward Spiral” as a mixing engineer. Also helping Reznor and Moulder were NIN members Charlie Clouser and Danny Lohner whose roles have become very important since the two helped Reznor for songwriting, arrangements, or programming. Also involved were a large group of engineers and mixers that helped create beats or sounds that Reznor might needed and sessions musicians were also hired that included former Helmet singer/guitarist Page Hamilton, former Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin, producer Steve Albini, King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew who had previously did sessions for the NIN album “The Downward Spiral” back in 1994, and former Chic/Power Station drummer Tony Thompson. Reznor’s approach to his new album was much different than any of his previous work. Usually, Reznor would work with a computer or synthesizers and sample loops from the things he recorded. This time for his new album to be called “The Fragile”, Reznor worked with instruments that he felt had a sound of imperfection by nature like a piano or a guitar that doesn’t work very well. Reznor used the new technique to see what he can come up and the technique worked as he continued working on his new album. While he took a low profile working on “The Fragile”, there were many rumors on what was expected to come on the upcoming NIN album, which Interscope had slated, will be released in the fall of 1998. Some thought Reznor would go further into the world of electronic music since he used the drum n’ bass sound for his song “The Perfect Drug” along with remixes for the maxi-single to the song and had previously contributed a vocal track to electronic music DJ John Wink’s 1998 album “Here Hear”. Other rumors claimed that Reznor’s new interest in the neo-soul R&B sound of Maxwell, Erykah Badu, and D’ Angelo would be his new direction for the album or the sample-heavy hip-hop sound that was making Sean “Puffy” Combs a hip-hop superstar who sampled pop hits like “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie or Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” into his rap songs. The “Puffy” rumor started when people learned Reznor did a remix for Combs’ next single “Victory” with Busta Rhymes and the recently-slain rapper Notorious B.I.G., some fans wondered if Reznor was going into the route that Puffy was becoming successful with but Reznor later explained in 2000 during an interview with MTV2 that Combs offered him a huge paycheck to remix the track and he admitted the he remixed it for the money. While many wondered what Reznor’s new direction was going to be for the upcoming album, the music scene had started to change rapidly. Since the emergence of underground rock in 1967 with the Velvet Underground, underground music served as an alternative against the mainstream. By the late 80s, underground music was becoming popular with those who hated mainstream music and by the early 90s, that underground music scene that created several sub genres became popular and known as Alternative Rock. In 1997, Alternative Rock had died and became Modern Rock as bands like Third Eye Blind and Matchbox 20 took the grunge rock sound of the early 90s into more pop-friendly territories while Alternative Rock veterans like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Tori Amos, R.E.M., and U2 had suffered huge declining sales or had disbanded in the wake of rock music’s decline. Another blow to rock music aside from the rise of hip-hop was the return of teen pop music from acts like the Spice Girls, Hanson, and most notably, the Backstreet Boys. Rock music’s decline worsened in 1998 as albums by the Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morrisette, and Tori Amos became commercial failures due to the rise of pop and hip-hop music. Rock did receive a boost later in 1998 when a new group of bands from the rap-metal sub genre came in to give rock a new edge with bands like Korn, Kid Rock, Deftones, and Limp Bizkit. While Reznor knew what was going on the mainstream music world, he chose to focus more and more into his new album. NIN fans that were waiting for the album chose the Internet as the place to keep NIN alive even if they weren’t doing anything. Popular websites included Seems Like Salvation News, The NIN Hotline, a Japanese website called The Perfect Drug, and several others were becoming popular among fans even though NIN ended up not releasing anything in 1998. As NIN continued to work on the album throughout 1998, there were more rumors on what is expected on the album and a large margin of fans think Reznor is going to continue with the same industrial rock sound that had made records like “Broken” and “The Downward Spiral” popular among NIN fans; plus, he was producing an industrial rock album for former Judas Priest singer Rob Halford who had signed an album deal with Reznor’s Nothing label as the duo Two with future Marilyn Manson guitarist John Lowery. For NIN fans that knew a lot about music and changing trends, they knew that Trent would not go back into the industrial music route. Since the industrial rock sub genre was created in the 80s; it gave many fans of rock and electronic music a chance to fuse the two genres into one and throughout the 1980s and early 90s, the music was edgy and gave name to some of its innovators and pioneers like Skinny Puppy, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Ministry, and NIN. By the mid-1990s, Ministry, NIN, and White Zombie had found success with their industrial rock sound, which led record companies to signing bands that had that industrial sound. By 1998, the genre had pretty much become a parody of itself and it was no longer revolutionary by fans and critics. Bands like Nitzer Ebb and Skinny Puppy had disappeared while Front 242 and Einsturzende Neubauten had changed their sound completely. Minstry however, who was considered the sub genres leading pioneers had fallen apart due to drug arrests and declining interest. In August of 1998, Alternative Press gave an interview with former Skinny Puppy singer Kevin Ogilvie and Pigface founder Martin Atkins, as the duo were ready to release their collaborative project Rx, the two industrial music icons announced the death of industrial music and made blatant comments on the genre they pioneered which they now feel has ran its course. On that same issue, the magazine made news about the upcoming NIN album, which was then pushed to 1999 since Reznor was working very heavily on the album and in related news, Reznor’s former pal Marilyn Manson announced the release date of his third full-length release titled “Mechanical Animals” to be released in early September. When Reznor and Manson broke their friendship off in late 1996, the two didn’t speak to each other throughout 1997 as Manson had established himself as a rock superstar. In early 1998, Manson had released an autobiography that was co-written with Neil Strauss called “The Long Hard Road Out of Hell”. Though the book was successful among rock fans, the book was not a favorite throughout members of the NIN camp including Reznor himself. The book contained details about Manson’s friendship with Reznor and their fallout in late 1996, which contained some false facts and half-truths since Manson wanted the book to become interesting. The final straw for Reznor came was when Manson had talked to David Bowie about producing his album “Mechanical Animals” and made some distressing comments about Reznor that led Bowie to tell Reznor about what Manson had said about him. For Trent Reznor, he felt he had lost someone he once knew and now doesn’t even know if the Marilyn Manson he knew back in the 1990s was gone and replaced by the Marilyn Manson aka rock superstar. While Manson continued to shock and created a new image at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards, NIN released a small commercial on that same night that featured music from the upcoming album “The Fragile” and the words that displayed at the end of the commercial was “ninety nine”. After the press learned that NIN was going to release the upcoming record in 1999, Reznor and co-producer Alan Moulder were continuing work on the album. Reznor had already had some songs written but found out that none of the songs had a unifying direction or a unifying theme. Reznor and Moulder knew they needed someone to help them find a direction for the songs they written and they turned to legendary rock producer Bob Ezrin. Bob Ezrin had made a name for himself producing classic albums for Alice Cooper (“Love It To Death”, “Billion Dollar Babies”, and “Welcome to My Nightmare”, Lou Reed (“Berlin”), Kiss (“Destroyer”), and Pink Floyd’s 1979 masterpiece “The Wall”. Ezrin listened to the songs Reznor had created and help give Reznor the direction he needed. Reznor and Moulder for months wondered if the new record should be a double album or not and in the end, the two decided to make it a double album that revealed Reznor’s depression and grief and at the same time, try to find a sense of optimism at the end. That became the concept for “The Fragile”.  |
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