Evanescence - Fallen

Two kids from Little Rock wrote most of this in a bedroom, and it went on to become one of the best-selling debut albums of the century. Fallen came out in March 2003, entered the Billboard 200 at number seven, climbed to number three, and has since been certified diamond in the United States for shipments past ten million. Worldwide it has moved north of seventeen million copies. Very little about the record explains why.

That is the appeal. Amy Lee sings like she trained for opera and got lost on the way to a metal show, Ben Moody's guitars are downtuned and unfashionably melodramatic, and the strings and choirs are laid on with a trowel. "Bring Me To Life" with Paul McCoy of 12 Stones was the inescapable one, but "Going Under," "My Immortal" and "Everybody's Fool" all became radio fixtures in their own right. Dave Fortman produced, Ted Jensen mastered. At the 2004 Grammys the band took Best New Artist and Best Hard Rock Performance out of five nominations.

Nothing that followed in the goth-adjacent rock of the 2000s happened without this album first.

Craft Recordings pressing on black vinyl, manufactured by Pirates Press, with a printed inner sleeve carrying all eleven sets of lyrics. The catalog standard.