Evanescence

A band that I used to be obsessed with, now I think they're so-so. On the music: The music on the first album (Fallen) has this "help me I'm dying" theme, which gets annoying really fast, and the songs all sound exactly the same. The second album (The Open Door) is a bit better, but it's not as drastically different as Amy Lee keeps saying it is (except maybe for Good Enough). The instrumental arangements are much better than in the 1st album, especially in Lacrymosa and Your Star, so the songs are mostly distinguishable. The lyrics, although they're a bit less depressing, are still really corny. Good Enough, which is apparently the most controversial song among Ev fans, doesn't fit with the album or the band at all. They're a rock band--so if they were gonna write a happy song, they could've at least written a happy rock-sounding song instead of a cheesy ballad. Despite all that, though, Amy Lee does have an amazing voice. It's not whiney or shrieky or too high--people who say that don't know what real singing sounds like. They sound really good live, compared to most bands. Obviously Amy's voice doesn't sound as good on stage as it does on the album, because in the studio she doesn't jump around while she's singing, and she probably do one song after another. Also, her voice on the album has to be edited at least a little bit. On the band: Evanescence isn't really a band anymore--it seems more like it's just Amy Lee plus some guys in the background. Amy acts like she's the only person who really works in the band and everyone else just helps. That's sad, because the other guys actually are pretty important. Amy only sings and plays piano, she doesn't play guitars or bass or drums. She also doesn't write most of the songs by herself (Terry Balsamo, one of the guitarists, is her writing partner), but in interviews she talks about how "I wrote this song," when she probably wouldn't have been able to come up with the song on her own. Yes, she does write some of the music on her own (lithium, good enough, like you), but those are some of the weakest songs they have, compared to the ones they write together. The drama in the band is definitely starting to get annoying. I could understand the thing with Ben Moody. But Amy firing John LeCompt and Rocky Gray leaving was just too much. Amy fired John only because he didn't feel exactly the same way about the band as she did. That's just pathetic. John was a great contribution to the band and Amy should've been grateful that she had him, instead of being a little diva.