fragile failure

i have to admit, i’m really surprised my plan didn’t work…

…but, so it goes, i guess?

back in 1999 when nine inch nails put out “the fragile” album, i actually bought it on album. as in lp. as in vinyl. while i don’t think i ever owned the two cassette set, i know i also got the cd and caught them on that tour up in dallas courtesy of my 101x hook-up at the time. a perfect circle opened. great show, as i recall it – i was pretty obliterated on maker’s mark for that one.

but anywho…

in an interview, trent reznor (singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/oscar winner/grammy winner/bad ass) said the album, which produced several popular alt radio hits, was not meant to be picked apart like that, but rather enjoyed as a whole, as a single sitting. to be listened to front to back without interruption.

here was the problem…

…if you listened to the cd’s you has a several second moment of mechanical noise (silence if using headphones) while the cd player manually switched discs. the other mediums were more complicated…two cassettes equals four sides and all the flip over or auto reverse (if you were fancy) pauses in between, and my vinyl even more so as you had to flip each of the THREE records over and switch between them.

talk about upending the experience!

but then came the digital age…

due to time restrictions the two cd set had to omit two songs that were supposed to be part of the album and, to that end, part of the “experience” i was shooting for. the cassettes added one of em back in, the vinyl added both…but there was all the literal physical pauses. for some reason it never occurred to me to try to sequence a playlist that put it all back together, but ever since streaming came around i’d always wanted to. as we neared the twenty-fifth anniversary of that trip to dallas to see em (my last trip to that venue after a couple 1990’s runs, as i recall) i started thinking about finally putting together the “experience” – making a playlist with all the tracks, in their original order, from all SIX sides of the records, with no pauses thanks to good ol’ digital technology. but alas, at least for now, it didn’t appear to fly.

which is ironic.

i’m on apple music because of trent reznor. back in the early 2010’s nine inch nails put out a thing i wanted to check out but it was exclusive to a new streaming service trent had started with dr. dre called “beats music service” or something to that effect. i was livid. while i had never done napster, i had been big into limewire and frostwire. famously so. but i has resisted all the spotify shit, even to the point of declining a spotify premium membership for free when it was offered; although, in truth, this was mainly because i didn’t have a smart phone at the time.

but then came the ufc, who got me on the iphone, and subsequently walked me through the long, tedious process of feeding the music algorithm baby all the info it needs to do its thing, and then the service got bought by apple, and we all had to switch over to that.

so this past weekend i got a wild hair and started a playlist. this part i know well – i have a series i can’t figure how to make public called “m radio” and they’re all hour long playlists i’ve curated of upbeat hip hop and edm stuff. i’ve got over a hundred. so, i go to do the fragile list and drop the album then go look up what the two extra tracks are but, to my surprise and dismay, only one is on apple music. the other is just gone. i can’t remember what it sounds like, but it’s three and a half minutes so i’m doubting, for some reason, it’s instrumental. as i type this, though, i’m wondering if we can still “rip” cd’s so apple music? is that a thing? i guess all might not be lost…