Trent Reznor explains the various sequencing of 'The Fragile' formats
Originally published in nin.com on September 1, 1999
Trent Reznor has been taken time to contact his fans via the Nine Inch Nails bulletin board to explain the various formats of 'The Fragile'. Trent posted the following message explaining why The CD, cassette and vinyl's versions of 'The Fragile' all have different sequencing.
Hello everybody. I've been doing a lot of European press lately and they've been mentioning the various configurations of 'the fragile' and wondering if there was a reason (other than to make the hard-core fan buy them all) to have some different tracks on them.
If you're curious, here's why. We agonized over the sequencing of the record and focused solely on the CD config. as the definitive one. After the decision was made to move to two CDs the problem then became removing tracks to get the right feel and flow.
Taking the new flesh' off the CD was a tough call because Alan and myself really like the track, but it destroyed the balance and it just didn't fit.
When we assembled the cassette, we now had four beginnings and endings to contend with instead of two of each (for the CD) follow? It worked out pretty well just dividing the songs up, but we wanted the A sides of the cassettes to be slightly longer than the B sides (so that when the tape flips over you are not in the middle of the first song on that side). We added the 'appendage' to 'please' to make that work.
For the vinyl, the decision to move to three discs was based on fidelity. (you can only fit so many minutes on a side of vinyl before it degrades the sound)
So now we are faced with SIX beginnings and endings. Simply splitting the sides up didn't work as well this time so we decided to include the other two tracks we had been considering ('10 miles high' and 'the new flesh') as well as use the full unedited versions of all the other songs on the record. The vinyl sequencing has actually grown on me lately as a viable alternate! -just thought you might want to know... "
Hello everybody. I've been doing a lot of European press lately and they've been mentioning the various configurations of 'the fragile' and wondering if there was a reason (other than to make the hard-core fan buy them all) to have some different tracks on them.
If you're curious, here's why. We agonized over the sequencing of the record and focused solely on the CD config. as the definitive one. After the decision was made to move to two CDs the problem then became removing tracks to get the right feel and flow.
Taking the new flesh' off the CD was a tough call because Alan and myself really like the track, but it destroyed the balance and it just didn't fit.
When we assembled the cassette, we now had four beginnings and endings to contend with instead of two of each (for the CD) follow? It worked out pretty well just dividing the songs up, but we wanted the A sides of the cassettes to be slightly longer than the B sides (so that when the tape flips over you are not in the middle of the first song on that side). We added the 'appendage' to 'please' to make that work.
For the vinyl, the decision to move to three discs was based on fidelity. (you can only fit so many minutes on a side of vinyl before it degrades the sound)
So now we are faced with SIX beginnings and endings. Simply splitting the sides up didn't work as well this time so we decided to include the other two tracks we had been considering ('10 miles high' and 'the new flesh') as well as use the full unedited versions of all the other songs on the record. The vinyl sequencing has actually grown on me lately as a viable alternate! -just thought you might want to know... "
Transcribed by Keith Duemling