The Six Wives of Henry VIII (album) a five-album deal with A&M Records as a solo artist. While touring the United States with Yes on their Fragile Tour promote "Fragile" (1971), Wakeman was informed by his manager Brian Lane that A&M co-founder and executive Jerry Moss wished to meet him at A&M Studios in Los Angeles. Moss wished for Wakeman to record a solo album and offered an advance of $12,500, around £4,000, to produce it which Wakeman accepted. As part of his signing on fee, Wakeman received a 1957 Cadillac limousine from A&M which he claimed was once owned by Clark Gable and had it shipped
The Fragile (Nine Inch Nails album) and writes that "The Fragile" uses funk bass lines, North African minor-key modalities, and the treatment of tonality by Symbolist composers like Debussy. The album also features several distorted guitar parts which Powers suggests that fans can enjoy. Rob Sheffield observes a "prog-rock vibe" akin to Pink Floyd's 1979 album "The Wall" and feels that "The Fragile" is similarly "a double album that vents ... alienation and misery into paranoid studio hallucinations, each track crammed with overdubs until there's no breathing room". Described by Reznor as a sequel to "The Downward Spiral"—an album with a plot detailing the destruction of