The Bottom Line: I'd always hoped it would be one of those CDs that just needs time to grow on you; over a decade later, I still rarely bother to play this one.
cdm72's Full Review: Fixed [EP] by Nine Inch Nails
Perhaps this will give you some idea of my opinion of the Nine Inch Nails remix CD, Halo 6: Fixed: I bought my copy in early 1997 and it was defective; about halfway through track 5, the CD locks up and won’t play anymore. In order to listen to track 6, I have to stop the CD altogether, backtrack to #6, then play. It’s always been like that, and I’ve never bothered to replace it, even though I could do so right now for $5.
FIXED just . . . well, it’s not the sht like its predecessor BROKEN. Trent Reznor has done a lot for the remix. Pre-NIN the form was seen as mostly just a way to beat a dead horse and force fans to shell out mo money for less quality. Trent Reznor, however, always the perfectionist, knows that any song can be made better, or at least re-done in an original manner. With his remix CDs, he took what had, to that point, been a quick fix for eager fans and made it into a viable artform. The 1992 release FIXED, remixing several of the songs from BROKEN, is meant to follow that trend. But . . . I’m tempted to say “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but it WAS called “broken”, I guess, and the remix is “fixed”, so maybe he thought he was helping?
Only there was nothing wrong with the original. Not a note, not a beat, not a line. BROKEN was perfect. And sometimes even Trent Reznor can stumble. Then again, maybe it’s the fact he’s not working alone here that is the real cause of FIXED’s demise.
Along with contributors Danny Hyde, Chris Vrenna, Butch Vig and others, FIXED is nothing more than a jumbled mess that only marginally resembles the source material. Sure there are parts of the original songs, a good section of “Wish” remains in the J. G. Thirlwell remix on track 2—also titled “Wish”—but at 9:11 it’s also THREE TIMES the length of the original, so you know there’s a good deal of that that’s unnecessary noise.
I was so excited when I bought FIXED. I love remixes. Prince got me hooked on them and as much as I loved BROKEN, I could only imagine FIXED would be like turning my beloved EP up to 11 and rocking the fk out. And I get this mess.
Sigh.
While the techniques employed to give the songs an original sound are interesting—especially on “Gave Up” where Trent’s vocals are seemingly run through a threshing machine and come out the other end with about every other syllable missing—but the end result and the run times make it all seem like nothing more than a gross indulgence of jam sessions on the part of Reznor and his cohorts.
I love the pound of the drums on the “Happiness In Slavery” remix, but where are the lyrics? Part of the brilliance of BROKEN was Reznor’s brutal lyrics, nearly all of which are missing from FIXED. There’s the occasional background scream of “Throw it awaaaaaayyyyyy” or the like, and yes the lyrics ARE present in a couple of songs, but they just don’t seem like remixes of those songs. More like Trent had a vague recall of how the original song went and was trying to redo it while fumbling around and making up as he went along the parts he couldn’t remember.
Another con, for me, is the lack of scope. There are, in total, 8 songs on BROKEN (including the hidden tracks). FIXED contains 6 tracks. Two of them, “Happiness in Slavery” and “Screaming Slave” are remixes of “Happiness in Slavery”. Two of them, “Wish” and “Fist Fck”, are remixes of “Wish”. That leaves the “Gave Up” remix, and “Throw This Away”, which includes parts of “Last” and “Suck”. I know collectively “Pinion” and “Help Me I Am In Hell” only make up 3 minutes of BROKEN, but those were both ripe for some awesome remixes. And both are, unfortunately, ignored on FIXED. Same with “Physical”, the Adam Ant cover. The BROKEN version is DA BOMB, but after hearing “Get Down, Make Love” from SIN . . . there was so much more that could have been done. If you’re gonna do a remix CD with 6 songs on it and you’ve got 8 to choose from, how about giving us remixes of 6 DIFFERENT songs? Hell, I’d have been happy with just remixing the 6 original BROKEN tracks and not even mentioning the hidden ones. But this? No, this was not what I’d asked for.
Of all my NIN CDs, FIXED remains the least played. I believe a good deal of its failing lies in the fact that you can’t improve on perfection and BROKEN was so mindblowingly awesome that anything attempting to take it a step further will, in fact, fall like that huge chunk of asteroid at the end of DEEP IMPACT. Then again, I’ve never been able to hear FIXED in any capacity other than in relation to BROKEN. If I’d never heard BROKEN, who’s to say, it still might just plain suck.
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