Entertainment

Amy Lee's New Music Is Nothing Like Evanescence

by S. Atkinson

Weep, teen goths, weep in unison. Wash away the city with your tears. The day has come when your teen music idol, Ms. Amy Lee, queen of angst, goddess of sorrow, is now making happy, sensitive, sentimental music for kids with cute animated videos. The news that Amy Lee's solo album, If You're A Star, is not the lyrical stylings of a latter-day Sylvia Plath set to rocky backing music, but an adorable album for tiny kids is, however, kind of logical when you think about it. For a start, Amy Lee, the lead singer for your favorite '00s band Evanescence, was just 20 years old when the band's hit "Bring Me To Life" dropped. So, actually, she was probably not all that older than you when you were listening to it.

Just as the passage of time has worked as it does, meaning you're now a fully grown adult and not a teen Evanescence goth, so too with Lee. Lee is now 34 years old, and, like lots of women her age, she has children — a son, Jack Lion Hartzler. Arguably, if you listened to Evanescence back in the day as a teenager, you might be on the cusp of motherhood yourself (or not, whatever, free will and choice and all that). So... is it that weird?

I mean, still, on one hand, yes, totally. Have you listened to this song? It's adorable, and even the video is so sweet it's giving me a toothache. Lee told Entertainment Weekly:

“The video is meant to illustrate that we’re never alone, that we’re not so different, all across the world, all you have to do is look up to remember that we are all under the same very big sky, maybe even wishing on the same star.”

I never thought I'd live to see the day when the lead singer from Evanescence, that most famously tortured of Christian rock bands, waxed lyrical about the starry night sky, but here we are. But, on the other hand, if you were to look at Lee's career in a totally stony-headed record executive way, a song for kids would make sense. Because, whether or not you've chosen to have children, you're almost certainly at the sort of age where it wouldn't be weird if you had them, you know?

So Amy Lee: the teen goth in me is tearing her uniform of black hoodies up in protest and horror and vowing to embark on some heavy protest fasting and angry toilet graffiti. But the 28 year old woman is saying: you know what? This transition makes so much sense, and I can't wait to see what you do next.

Images: Amy Lee/YouTube