Ongoing History Daily: The enduring popularity of Evanescence’s debut album
When Amy Lee and Evanescence released Fallen, their debut album, back in 2003, they couldn’t have imagined how enduring that record would be. Earlier this month, it was certified as a Diamond-seller in America, meaning that it has sold 10 million copies.
The big song from the record, of course, was the very first single, “Bring Me to Life,” which has been viewed on YouTube more than 1.1 billion times. What most people know is that the band was opposed to having someone rap on the song.
The dude’s name is Paul McCoy, a Christian rock artist, and was never part of the band. He’s there because the record company insisted that the song (and the band) would never be a hit if it remained exclusively female-fronted. That really rankled the band, but because they were so young and fresh, they had few options, so they let it happen.
Sexist record company direction? Definitely. But in the end, it all paid off.
It didn’t pay off. Being forever misrepresented by that one overblown rap-rock first single isn’t a pay off. People who don’t bother looking into the rest of discography, which is most casual listeners and listeners of hits, think Evanescence is represented by Bring Me to Life, which they aren’t at all.