About
Origin is the first full length CD released by Evanescence's 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, originally intened to be used to send to different major labels.
Originially released on November 4th, 2000, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Origin was only sold to concert audiences in their hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Many different versions of Origin exist, but there’s only one true track listing. Only 2500 discs were printed, but due to the band's increased popularity, significant numbers of pirated copies have been produced and sold. Members of Evanescence have stated that they prefer their fans to copy/download the CD rather than buy it.
Bigwig Enterprises stopped selling Origin in early February 2003 (a day or two before the Daredevil Soundtrack album was released) and removed it from their catalogue. Real and fake copies are bought on EBay for upwards of $300.
Notes on the album
Two songs, "Listen to the Rain" (a song Amy Lee wrote for her high school graduation which included her school's choir) and "Demise", were cut from the album. The band originally had "Eternal" as track 11, "Listen to the Rain" as track 12, and "Demise" as track 13. However, it was decided to merge "Eternal" and "Demise" and cut "Listen to the Rain" from the album. "Demise" became the outro of "Eternal".
Two other songs that didn't make it onto the CD were "Catherine", a song that Amy Lee and Ben Moody wrote together that was played live once or twice at their Little Rock shows, as well as "Spanish".
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 late 2003.
The original release contained a hidden track, which is located before the first track. In order to hear it, you have to rewind (while hearing what you are rewinding) the first song and reach -0:24 approximately (yes, minus). It is an outtake of the end of the bridge of Anywhere, featuring Amy Lee and David Hodges singing and apparently Ben Moody says a few words at the end of it, just before Origin begins.
The end of the album was originally supposed to include the song Listen To The Rain between the songs Eternal and Demise (now know as "Eternal").
Pre-releases of the album included this song, but the finished product did not include the song.
