Origin

Origin is the first full length CD released by the alternative metal band Evanescence on the Bigwig Enterprises label. Although it is occasionally considered to be Evanescence’s first album, lead singer Amy Lee has explicitly said that she doesn’t consider it to be an album but rather a “dressed up” demo CD. Released in 2000, Origin was only sold to concert audiences in their hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas and on the Bigwig Enterprises website. Only 2,500 discs were printed, but due to the band’s increased popularity, significant numbers of pirated copies have been produced and sold (sometimes in the form of a “Russian Re-Release” with 19 tracks). These fakes make an actual copy less likely to be found. Members of Evanescence have stated that they prefer their fans to copy/download the CD rather than buy it.

Evanescence re-recorded three songs from this CD for their début album Fallen. While “Whisper” and “My Immortal” are fundamentally the same on both discs, “Imaginary” exhibited a major change in structure between Origin and Fallen. In addition to these three songs, the band continued to play “Even in Death” in concert until March 2004.