BROKEN

"Broken" is an EP release by US industrial rock/metal act Nine Inch Nails. The EP was released through Nothing/TVT Records in September 1992. Considering the grand commercial success of the debut album "Pretty Hate Machine (1989)", it's thought provoking that it took Trent Reznor 3 years before he was ready to release "Broken". There were various reasons for the long recording break though. First of all Nine Inch Nails had spend time touring in support of the debut album, but the most significant reason was probably that Trent Reznor had a feud with TVT Records, who according to him, pressured him into writing an album in a similar style to the debut, which he refused. Trent Reznor vision to inject his industrial rock with a shot of metal didn't exactly please TVT Records. After a long legal battle the two parties reached a deal though and Trent Reznor was released from his record deal with TVT Records, but only after the release of "Broken". He would subsequently sign a deal with Interscope Records.

The music on the 99 track EP is industrial rock/metal. out of the 99 tracks only 8 are "real" songs while the remaining tracks are 0:01 minute tracks of silence. It's a formula that wasn't uncommon in the early- to mid nineties, where artists sought to explore the CD medium to it's full. While it may have been something new and exciting in 1992 that a band would chose to do such a thing, today it's just plain annoying that we get 6 tracks and then a bunch of silent tracks before the last 2 tracks kick in. With that said the quality of the "real" tracks on the album is high throughout. Angsty/angry industrial rock/metal packed in a powerful and impressive sound production, featuring layers of sounds, samples, vocals and instruments. Most tracks are quite catchy and I can see why a track like "Wish" ended up winning the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. In 1992 this sounded fresh, energetic and inspired but that's actually also the case today. "Broken" doesn't sound dated at all and that's a bit surprising but also a testimony to the high quality of the sound production! A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is warranted.