They Might Be Giants continually defy being boxed. A small part of me winces every time they get lumped in as "geek rock" because of a few songs from Flood or Here Comes Science or whatever. A record like this just goes to show how utterly different their approach to art is. The closest you can orbit is maybe R.E.M. and even that feels subtly wrong. The bizarrity of each song and its two-guys-with-a-drum-machine instrumentation complements the surface-level mundane yet truly witty lyrics. Whether it be the college degree ignoramus of "Purple Toupee" or the unceremoniously fracturing love of "They'll Need a Crane" or even the goofy pun of "The World's Address," something inexplicable draws you in with each listen; it transcends "quaint". The guitar tones are harshly mixed, a bit abrasive, the drum machine programming is crude—you're never quite sure when you'll be hit with a goofy sound effect... and it's perhaps the most wonderful piece of music in my catalogue. Zero doubt about this grade.
If you asked me to grade this record a year ago, I would’ve given it the 🪓 without a pause. Yet I find myself unable to do that now.. The more I listen to The Fragile, the more crevices the “filler” seems to actually fill. Tracks like “La Mer” and “Complication” used to strike me as half-baked attempts to mix “art” into Reznor’s clearly functioning formula, but I know better now: it’s an album that lulls you to sleep before slapping you in the face. Beyond that, the lyricism—Spiral but applied to the flailing fractures of two rotting lovers—hits harder now than it used to. Even still, its length makes it cumbersome, but not bloated. It’s not a weekly listen, so I won’t give it the +, but that doesn’t make it any less great. It’s probably Trent’s most mature—if not most panicked—masterpiece.