What Is The Best Opener For An Album Ever Made?--"Somewhat Damaged" by Nine Inch Nails

  What Is The Best Opener For An Album Ever Made?--"Somewhat Damaged" by Nine Inch Nails 

Adrian Schneider

Often, openers for albums are overlooked as unimportant. Many times, albums will only have intros as an opener, like Soldier Side--Intro on System Of a Down's Mezsmerize or the intro on Gorillaz's Demon Days. However, I feel that the opener for an album is one of the most important songs on the album, introducing the listener not only to a new experience, but sometimes the artist's sound as a whole. A good opener is important to the overall sequence of the album, and I find that metal albums often have great openers. Some examples of acclaimed and great openers include Papercut by Linkin Park, My Own Summer(Shove It) by Deftones, and Blind by Korn. 

All of these songs are great, and beloved by fans, but one of the most underrated--and best, in my opinion--openers of all time comes from an industrial metal band created by Trent Reznor: Nine Inch Nails. Nine Inch Nails is one of the most popular industrial metal bands ever, being featured on multiple movie soundtracks and 2 Grammy wins. The Fragile, released in 1999, is their third studio album. Although not as popular as other projects like Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral, the album was critically acclaimed by fans. The opener for this album is Somewhat Damaged, which is one of the most musically interesting songs I’ve ever heard. 

Somewhat Damaged opens in a ¾ time signature, with one guitar being slowly plucked in that signature. Slowly, another guitar is added on top, still playing in the same signature, with no other instrumental or lyrics. Then percussions are slowly added on top of it, each playing for at least a full count before another instrument is added. Eventually, a 4/4 time signature is superimposed over the ¾ time signature.

Trent Reznor doesn’t begin singing until a minute into the song, where he uses his signature singing voice, with dark synths playing in the background. At first, he’s quiet, singing about being obsessed with his supposed love interest, who is addressed only as “you”, making the listener feel weirdly personal with the song. As the music progresses, the lyrics become more twisted, singing about a machine being “obsolete” and of violence, maybe referencing the love interest.

There’s a feeling of self-hatred that creeps through, as if the singer is slowly losing their mind as they sing. Throughout the song, Reznor slowly gets louder, until the “climax” of all the music, where he violently screams all the lyrics. Towards the end of the song, the singer feels resentment of this love interest after being abandoned with nothing but self hatred, “All alone, by myself, where were you?” The song dies off after Reznor screams “Where the fuck were you?”, being left with only the same droning dark synth and him humming like a ghost. 

Somewhat Damaged paints a picture of someone spiraling into disgust and self-loathing after being abandoned by somebody they loved, combined with unique production of music and innovative use of percussion, layering instruments on top of each other to paint a disturbing image. This image leaves the viewer unsettled and uncomfortable, but ready to listen to the rest of The Fragile. That is why I believe Somewhat Damaged is the best opener ever.