#The Fragile

[robsheridan]

Nine Inch Nails The Fragile released 25 years ago today. Here’s a 1999 digital camera photodump from the months surrounding the album’s release; a surreal, transformative time in my young life. Words can’t describe what it was like, but these photos and textures bring back the strangest hazy memories that feel like a dream: Not even a year out of high school, moving to New Orleans to work for my heroes as they were in the final year of recording a dense, challenging masterpiece of an album. Not everyone was ready for The Fragile at the time, but it now stands as one of the seminal works of pre-millennium art. If you’ve never experienced it, or haven’t in a while, it deserves a focused, solitary beginning-to-end listening in the highest fidelity, on your best sound system, at the loudest volume.

1: Recording The Fragile, Nothing Studios. 2: Various Fragile concept art by David Carson, Nothing Studios. 3: Gear, Nothing Studios. 4: Early NIN website concept screenshot. 5: Control Room A, Nothing Studios. 6: Live room, Nothing Studios. 7: The Fragile printer proofs, David Carson’s office, NYC. 8: Meeting with David Carson in his office, NYC. 9: Mixes, Nothing Studios. 10: Recording journals, Nothing Studios. 11: Filming the “We’re In This Together” video, Guadalajara, Mexico. 12: Band rehearsals, Bahamas. 13: Gear, Nothing Studios. 14: Robin Finck, Nothing Studios. 15: Charlie Clouser and Danny Lohner, band rehearsals, Nothing Studios. 16: The Day The World Went Away artwork, Nothing Studios. 17: MTV Awards rehearsals, NYC. 18: Skull, Nothing Studios. 19: Control Room B, Nothing Studios. 20: Various images posted to nin dot com teasing The Fragile in the months prior to its release.

[rapt-re]

mood boards inspired by my favourite bands: Nine Inch Nails

(this is more the downward spiral/the fragile inspired tbh)

[begothdolll]

this is my favorite hair of his because he looks like a fucking. dork

[phontao]

my god pouts on the cover of a magazine

[compactdiscdigitalaudio]

Nine Inch Nails The Fragile CD booklet

[pozerrrrrrrrrrrrrr]

Trent Reznor is a musical genius because he wrote La Mer isolated in a beach house while contemplating suicide and that is exactly how La Mer sounds/feels. The song is a pulsing wave that persists endlessly. The beginning is peaceful, maybe moody but relaxed. You know what youre going to do and coudln't care less about your surroundings anymore. It's blissful, its freeing. Youre excited almost. The song ramps up. Every moment that led you here pulsing, and the base line cuts through for the first time, and youre bitter about it all in a carefree sort of way. snarky even. But the rhythm and piano still hit eachother like waves, the ocean ever present.

and it gets muddier, other melodies start poking through, a sharp buzz rings for the rest of the song. Realizing what you're actually doing, what youre capable of, it's the most overwhelming snap back to reality. and sirens start to wail and it all gets a little distorted. you want to do something just so you dont have to think about it anymore. and it stops and there are the waves of the piano again and only that. its so desperate and worn out and angry and confused. and you are defeated but alive, a victory you can't yet see.

french kiss i love it the song is the embodiment of ocean longing.

[onespreadtoanother]

[imyourmum]

[impulse0000]

sometime in the late 90’s…

[s4nct1f1ed]

while visiting new orleans i decided to take a picture on the ninfamous (infamous) gutter

[jackq0t]

I was up above it (Now I'm down in it).

[14saw]

study

[mtvscreengrabs]

Into the Void - Nine Inch Nails (1999)

[bmoviebabylon]

they didn’t give me a dick because they knew I’d get hard every time I listened to please by nine inch nails