Sifrer 2700B final proj

Hey, I'm Olivia Siffer, and today I want to talk about an iconic early 2000s alt metal slash rock album, Fallen by Evanescence. I'll give a bit of background on the album and the artists, then I want to talk a bit about how I like to enjoy the album and give some info you might not know on some of the tracks. First, let's talk about some album and band fun facts. It came out in 2003, meaning it had its 20th anniversary last year. Happy birthday, Fallen! The band has consisted of various people over the years, but at the time of the album release, there was just Amy Lee on vocals and piano and Ben Moody on guitar. Just the two of them. Fallen is and was an album that defied genre lines. The musical sound itself, if you haven't listened to the album already, has some of the classic solid loud walls of guitar and drums you would expect from a rock or metal or even punk song of the early 2000s, but it also has lots of beautiful piano interludes, soft melodic vocal sections, and classical string and operatic sounds you don't find in a lot of traditional hard rock or metal. Yeah, it's arguably metal, but it's also so pretty, and Amy Lee's voice is so powerful and beautiful that it could probably wake the dead. The introduction of Taking Over Me, the 8th song on the album, shows this dichotomy pretty well, with a few gorgeous bars of classical strings being interrupted after a few short bars by crunchy, harsh guitar. As for how to get the most out of a listen of Fallen, I recommend listening loudly and with headphones, because it's the closest you can get to injecting the album directly into your veins, and it's just that good. This is the kind of music that makes you want to wear smudgy black eyeliner if you don't already do that. It's an emotional album, which makes sense, considering Amy Lee has mentioned that it's about an abusive relationship. It's assumed to be with her bandmate at the time, who left due to creative differences during their first tour, but it hasn't been confirmed by either of them. So when you hear the lyrics from the very first verse of the very first song on the album, know that she means the lyrics, 50,000 tears I've cried, screaming, deceiving, and bleeding for you with her whole chest. Now, I just want to go through quickly what each song is actually about. I know in some of these cases, my opinion of some songs and what I thought the lyrics meant listening to them growing up changed once I saw an Amy Lee interview where she discussed the songs on Fallen 20 years later. On the online zine Kerrang!, a publication for alt metal and rock news if you aren't familiar, spelled K-E-R-R-A-N-G exclamation mark, she went into detail. There's 11 songs on the original album. I won't hit them all, but I'll hit some highlights. First, Going Under. It's the first single released from the album. Lyrically, it's pretty emo. This is one of the big, quote, totally about an abusive relationship, unquote, songs on the album, but it's kind of about trying to escape it rather than just straight up suffering. With the line, don't want your hand this time, I'll save myself. Still sad, but kind of empowering. Don't want your hand this time, I'll save myself. Maybe I'll wake up for one. Next, Bring Me to Life. I refuse to believe anyone hasn't heard this one. It's the song where they go, wake me up, wake me up inside. It's been boomed a million times. This one's pretty emo too, but a fun fact is that Amy Lee actually didn't want any rap in the album at all, and this is the one track her producers bullied her into allowing it on. That's why it's the only song with a male voice. Wake me up, wake me up inside. Wake up, wake me up inside. Call my name and save me from the dark. Third is Everybody's Fool. This one takes a different thematic turn and is actually a critique of the sort of gotta have it all, over-sexualized Hollywood lifestyle that was being perpetuated by some of the female pop stars of the time, think Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, although Amy Lee claims that she had no specific personality in mind. She also says that she was mostly frustrated at the impact these celebrity standards had on her sisters, and that's what inspired the song. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,