Broken - Dark Publications

Location: Home » music » General » Broken

Similar Items:

•	Pretty Hate Machine
•	The Fragile
•	Fixed
•	The Downward Spiral
•	Year Zero

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
As a placeholder between the full-length Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral, Broken packs a serious punch. Angrier and less poppy than Machine, this EP is full of noisy hooks, if such a thing is possible (check out that guitar riff on the full-throttle "Wish"), and much closer aesthetically to the industrial subgenre that informs Trent Reznor's music. As song titles like "Help Me I Am in Hell" suggest, Broken is a work of undiluted rage, which is, of course, a big part of its appeal. --Genevieve Williams

Customer Reviews: Read 236 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Interesting, almost compelling November 10, 1999
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

I must admit that I am not your average industrial metal rock fan, having grown up with Hendrix and the Doors and pushing 50. I picked up NIN's "Broken" on a whim in a drugstore sale bin and I can barely believe how this music has taken a grip on me. I love cranking it up on the commute home from work. It has a way of clearing out the mental cobwebs that no other music even comes close to. Some hear anger in this stuff. I hear a destructive, apocalyptic joy strangely combined with rage. It makes me want to scream, not in anger but in raw exhultation, a kind of celebration of being alive even though trapped in career and suburbia - true "Happiness in Slavery".

5 out of 5 stars

The classic EP January 15, 2006
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

When Nine Inch Nail's debut album "Pretty Hate Machine" (1989) was first released, it was greeted with little fanfare or commotion. Over time, however, through word-of-mouth, the album caught on. In the early 90s it became an underground and college favorite. Through constant touring and the emergence of the popularity of alternative rock in the early 90s, Nine Inch Nails started to take off. While fans eagerly awaited Trent Reznor's proper follow-up, they eagerly devoured the stop-gap EP "Broken" (1992).

While "Pretty Hate Machine" went for straight-forward industrial beats, "Broken" is far heavier, more aggressive, with more guitars. While the club/techno crowd may have been more receptive to the debut, "Broken" is an EP that would just as likely appeal to metal fans. Equal parts metal and industrial beats, "Broken" can be seen as a prelude, or a sneak preview of what Reznor would unveil two years later with his masterpiece "The Downward Spiral" (1994).

Clocking in slightly past the half-hour mark, with eight songs (two tracks are hidden, two are instrumentals) "Broken" is pretty short. But the EP is so angry, so aggressive, with no reprieve; the shortness in length probably works for the best.

"Broken" features the NIN classics and concert staples, "Wish," "Gave Up," and (the hidden track) "Suck." The lesser known "Last," "Happiness in Slavery," and a cover of Adam Ant's "Physical" (also hidden) are no less memorable. Instrumentals "pinion" and "Help me I am in Hell" help round out the CD.

Back in 1992 when CDs were relatively new to consumers, having ninety-one silent, second-long tracks separate the final two songs from the first six may have been cool and inventive. Now, however, it seems kind of pointless. Still, it's no big deal.

If you are a fan of NIN, "Broken" is just as essential to own as any of the studio albums.

5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating display of anger and torment August 6, 2000
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

Broken is one of the best harder rock albums of the decade, and certainly one of the best Nine Inch Nails recordings. Trent Reznor hates the world, and he lets you know it through this intense and powerful EP.

Broken begins with an instrumental opening, Pinion, which is a great lead into Wish, the song that earned Reznor a grammy. Then comes Last, one of the greatest metal songs ever written. Help Me I Am In Hell, a peaceful yet depressing minute long instrumental, is a break from the assault. Immediately following it is the angriest song on the album, Happiness In Slavery. My personal favorite, Gave Up, ends the album displaying a show of grief and failure.

There are two hidden tracks, Physical and Suck, both of which are great, but don't stand out compared to the main songs. Broken is short...only six songs and two instrumentals long, but what it lacks in length it makes up in lasting appeal and quality. This album is like a collection of singles, and each track will never get old. It's a great way to release anger and an outlet for inner torment.

Broken does, however, differ greatly from other Nine Inch Nails albums, especially Pretty Hate Machine. If you fell in love with PHM's techno sound, this assault might come as a surprise. Needless to say though, if you're a Nine Inch Nails fan you must own this amazing EP. This is a step forward in the evolution of the greatest band (or musician I should say) of the 90's.

5 out of 5 stars Fire, Steel, Carnage, and Pure Genius April 15, 2002
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

This album hits your serotonin receptors like an atom bomb. It's damn near impossible to listen to this whole thing without rocking out to the beat or singing (screaming) along. Genevieve Williams describes it as a placeholder. It's not. It grinds Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral into the dust with blasting guitar noises and soul-wrenching rhythms. It's all the quality of a normal-length CD concetrated into an EP.

No, I'm not a sales rep, but if you're even considering buying this album, you want it. You've been needing it for years to fill that empty gap in your life... You know, that gap a lot of us tried to stuff with trite nu-metal garbage and jerking off... "Broken" is a confrontation with the naked id -- an album for a dysphoric world, for beautiful destruction, for screaming at the top of your lungs at everything and nothing, for fear, for angst, and somehow -- for hope. Even as galaxies collide, supernovas explode, and the universe shatters, there is a phoenix hidden in the flames on the album cover. When we have reached the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up.

...Alright, maybe I'm over-dramatizing. Maybe I *am* a sales rep =). Maybe Trent Reznor is just trying to capitalize on a vast teenage market of angst-turned-commercialism. Nonetheless, this is still the perfect album for when you're angry, upset, depressed, or confused like so many of us are. Works better than prescription medication. Reznor may repeat many of the same self-destructive themes in his songs, but guess what? So do we in life. "Broken" brings to consciousness that relentless voice inside our heads that tells us to screw everything and just let it all out. By the time I'm done listening, I have nothing left to vent.

More to the point, if you enjoy loud, engaging, sonorous mayhem, this album is for you. I consider it Reznor's best work to date. Listen. Rage. Repeat.

5 out of 5 stars Gotta listen to your big time, hard line, bad luck fist... December 14, 2000
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I could have happiness in slavery if I had this cd with me... This is one of my favorite NIN cds to date (I have 14 so far) along with TDS and The Fragile. Pinion is a great opener for the CD, as well as most NIN concerts. Wish is plain great, and who wouldn't like a song that is [so honest]? Last is a great song as well... Help me I am in hell is very moody and makes me think of a person sulking and seething when I hear it. Happiness in Slavery is perhaps my favorite NIN song of all time, and it's video may make your stomach turn! Gave Up makes me want to...listen to it. .... But so is all NIN. Tracks 7-97 are average I guess you can say. Physical is interesting, the only not really heavy song on their, although Suck is arguably not as heavy either. .... This album is very angry and is the heaviest NIN. It is best to listen to this very loud. ...

Powered by Associate-O-Matic