Evanescence Fallen Release Date

[Joy Wida]

Fallen is the debut studio album by American rock band Evanescence, released on March 4, 2003 by Wind-up Records. Co-founders singer and pianist Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody began writing and recording songs as Evanescence in 1994, and after releasing two EPs and a demo CD, they signed to Wind-up in January 2001. Several of the songs from their earlier independent releases feature on Fallen. The album was recorded between August and December 2002 in several studios in California. It is Evanescence's only studio album to feature Moody, who left the band in October 2003.

The album yielded four singles: "Bring Me to Life", "Going Under", "My Immortal", and "Everybody's Fool". "Bring Me to Life" and "My Immortal" charted in the top 10 of over 10 countries, including the US, UK and Australia. Fallen is Evanescence's most commercially successful album to date, selling 10 million copies in the US and over 17 million copies worldwide, making it the sixth best-selling album of the 21st century. It debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200 with 141,000 copies sold in its first week, peaking at number three in June 2003. The album topped the charts in more than 10 countries. It was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in November 2022.

Fallen received generally positive reviews from music critics. Evanescence received five nominations at the 46th Grammy Awards: Album of the Year, Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song, Best Hard Rock Performance, and Best New Artist, winning the latter two.[5] At the following year's ceremony, "My Immortal" was nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Evanescence embarked on their first headlining concert tour, the Fallen Tour, in 2003. A live album and concert DVD with behind the scenes footage was released in 2004, titled Anywhere but Home.

Lee and Moody met as teenagers in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1994.[11] She brought him a cassette tape of her playing guitar and singing a song she wrote, and they became musical collaborators, playing and working on music at Lee's home,[12][8] and occasionally performing acoustic sets at book stores and coffee houses in the Little Rock area.[10][6][13] Lee had a 16-track recorder that she and him would use alongside Pro Tools, "fake strings and choirs" on her keyboard, and layer sounds and beats for their early material, which they mixed and produced. "We were basically just putting it down to remember what we wanted", Lee said.[17] Lee's musical vision for Evanescence was "the idea of combinations that were unlikely".[9] She aimed to combine her different musical tastes, "bringing something from the cinematic and classical symphonic world and marrying it to metal, hard rock and alternative music."[18][15] "There was all this music that was inspiring me. And Evanescence was the product of these two extremes combining".[19][20]

They recorded two independent EPs as Evanescence, self-releasing them in the late 1990s.[12][21][22] Their early demos got them airplay on the local modern rock station in Little Rock, which helped them develop a local fanbase, allowing them to play a couple of bigger production shows a year and hire other musicians to perform other instruments live.[14] Although they played with guest musicians, Evanescence remained a duo.[10] "The idea of a full band playing these songs was something that only came along later", Lee said.[15] Moody said that Lee and him were focused on writing music over playing live shows, and they did not want to have a band join their writing process; "we just wanted it to be the two of us and so we'd play once or twice a year."[22] They packaged a demo CD, Origin (2000), to shop it to record labels,[23] and signed with Wind-up Records in 2001.[12][21] Origin and their earlier EPs contain demo versions of some of the songs that would later appear on Fallen.[7][15]

In a 2004 MTV interview, Moody said that he and Lee rarely wrote together, it was "maybe two or three times in eight years did we actually sit down and write together in the same room."[24] Lee said that she and Moody never sat down and wrote together, and instead would combine their respective parts in songs. From the start, Lee would only ever write music by herself, considering it a vulnerable process and feeling disrespected by Moody. The creation of Fallen largely consisted of her and Moody writing music separately and then adding to each other's work, due to tension and significant creative differences between them. Lee's creative disagreements with Moody included his strict approach to songwriting and focus on commerciality; he would "always be corralling" her ideas, and wanting to push them in a more commercial, pop direction.[36] She indicated that with Moody there was a "pressure of wanting to rule the world".[33][32] "It was always a push and pull between us, for me", she said. "Fallen really is a lot of compromise. It definitely leaned toward what he wanted a lot of the time."[35] Creative restrictions included instrumentation decisions such as her wanting to play organ on the record and Moody not wanting that.[37][38] She stated that at one point, all her "pianoplaying rights were stripped away" from her because Moody felt she "was getting too much attention", so a keyboard player was hired.[31]

Moody said in a 2003 interview that he focused on making the album "as accessible as possible, to as many people as possible".[39] He later conceded that they had different approaches, adding that Lee is "more creative" and "more educated musically", and he is "more commercial minded" and likes making "songs people can adhere to."[40]

Lee expressed that the making of Fallen was stressful because "we had to remember [that] at least one big single had to be totally radio-friendly."[30] In 2006, she said that Moody and the label "packed down and condensed" the original versions of the songs, and she thought that "in some respects, it felt like it was pulling some of the artistic integrity out".[41] In the early 2020s, Lee recalled the process of making Fallen and the obstacles faced: .mw-parser-output .templatequoteoverflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequoteciteline-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0

Lee deemed the "fight for credibility" as a creator to be one of the biggest challenges she faced early on, explaining: "It was the mentality of labels to tell, especially newer artists, that they need to have writers. ... And the reason that they wanted [men] to do it was because that's where the money was. That's where the power was. Everybody else wanted to be able to say they did that when I did that".[46] She also noted that, for being the frontwoman "people assume that it's not yours. And some of the people around me were more than happy to let them believe that."[47]

In a 2023 retrospective for the album's 20th anniversary, Lee stated that there are musical elements "that exist in the way that I hear things in my head that aren't in the mix on the album", such as some string arrangements and electronics. Lee reconciled with the mix of Fallen after bringing more of those elements to the forefront with Evanescence's 2017 album Synthesis.[48]

The album's songs were written by Lee and Moody, with Lee the core writer.[52] The two wrote some of the songs when they were 15 and 16.[14] "Imaginary", "My Immortal", and "Whisper" were originally from the duo's independent recordings in the 1990s.[39][53] Lee composed some of the songs at her house on her keyboard.[54][55] She wrote songs alone first on the piano or on acoustic guitar, and for Fallen she would write a song and work with Moody to "take it to the finish line."[10][30] Lee wrote the album's lyrics except "My Immortal"'s, the melodies, much of the music, pianos, and all the choirs;[58] she is credited with the choral arrangements.[59] Lee also honed in on the string arrangements and electronic elements of the album, some of which are in the background.[48]

Most of Lee's writing on Fallen was driven by her mindset during a relationship she was in with an abusive man.[6][60] Lee wrote "Going Under" about "coming out of a bad relationship". She described the feeling as, "when you're at the end of your rope, when you're at the point where you realize something has to change, that you can't go on living in the situation that you're in."[61] Lee later said that after completing the songs that came out of an abusive relationship, she was listening to her words on "Going Under" and felt that in the chorus she would have liked to have written instead the notion of "I'm leaving and I'm not going to put up with this anymore", thinking to herself "you know what you need to do and you're not doing it."[60] She considered the song the most honest she'd been lyrically and a statement of standing up for herself, in contrast with "Bring Me to Life", which was more of a "cry for help".[62][48] Billboard said that the "stop/start cadence" of the guitar, "rippling piano and Lee's defiant wail pack a startling wallop".[63]

Written by Lee when she was 19,[64] "Bring Me to Life" is stylistically a nu metal-rap rock song.[65][66] The label forced them to add the male rapping vocal, which Lee did not want,[67][13][43] after originally demanding they include a rap on eight of the songs on the album.[62] She wrote the song after a then-acquaintance asked her if she was happy, and while in an abusive relationship at the time, she lied in response. The acquaintance seeing through her facade, as she felt she "was completely outwardly acting normal", inspired her to write the track.[68][69][70] The song is about "open-mindedness" and "waking up to all the things you've been missing for so long", Lee said, realizing that "for months I'd been numb, just going through the motions of life."[71][49] "From the sparkling piano to the epic choruses, to Lee's siren call", Billboard considered "Bring Me to Life" Fallen's "definitive track."[63]

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