Evanescence Featuring Paul McCoy - Bring Me To Life

October 09, 2011 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

I wasn't sure what music video I was going to review today, since it's a Sunday I always choose an artist I have reviewed in the past week, and choose a music video that is more than 4 years old. Out of the last week, this music video was an obvious choice, and I could watch this one over and over and over again, and although the song could possibly get on my nerves within that short space of time, the video itself would never become boring and it will still shock me every time I see it. Evanescence has had a few line-up changes in the past few years, as this music video is their first ever single, the band contained all original members, these members are: Amy Lee, John LeCompt, Terry Balsamo, Will Boyd and Rocky Gray. I have always, always thought that the male vocals on this track was sung by John LeCompt, but how wrong was I? I just looked it up and they are actually sung by someone called Paul McCoy, who also appears in the video. I constantly thought that it was John LeCompt who tried to help her up and then let her go, that's just shocked me, I'm surprised that for nearly 10 years I've never knew they were guest vocals.... Anyway, focusing back on this review. Paul McCoy is the male-vocalist of the band 12 Stones (who I've never heard of. But apparently they're big in the US).

I like this song, Amy's voice is clear, and emotional and you can definitely hear every note of sentiment as she's singing and this could be the reason it got to number one. The song's about being with someone for a bit of fun and then when they go their separate ways they realise that they are in love, but they're lost without one another and waiting for the other to "bring" them back "to life".I love Paul McCoy's rapping/heavy-rock verse, and although it's difficult at times to understand what he's singing, it works well and it's what makes this song stand out. If it were to be re-released it would still make number one (I think).

This music video is a little flickery on YouTube, but I admit it's nothing like that on the music channels. It has only gained 1 million hits which is a little weird as you naturally would have expected a load more, but maybe YouTube wasn't around in 2003? I really like this music video, and although it's simple and you kind of can see how it's been made, it's still an amazing video, and kind of links in with the song's meaning.

I like how Amy is dreaming of falling, it's something really interesting and suggests that she has no life without this guy in her life. So she becomes a daredevil (since the stairs and the elevators are blocked, why she doesn't use them I have no idea, maybe she wasn't thinking straight, too messed up about losing this guy than actually thinking clearly), and starts scaling the building. She gets to the top and Paul McCoy sees her and helps to get her in the room, but in opening the window, it pushes Amy off the ledge, she's hanging onto the ledge and Paul tries to help her up. This connotes the fact that maybe if they did decide to get back together then maybe it wouldn't work and he'll end up letting go of her again. Which is exactly what Paul does, and it shocks me every time I see it. Anyhow, it turns out to be all a dream anyway, which definitely suggests that even though she has a hole in her heart and that life may not be worth living without him, nothing good can come out of it, so it's best to forget and move on.

I like how the music video enchants the song into something much more than what it was written for, both the vocals and the video puts together creates this amazing outlook on life that just takes over and leaves you wanting to press repeat for the rest of your life. I like the fact that a music video can be this strong to make me feel this way.

Overall I love this music video, it's simple, basic, a little bit of a low budget, but it's so powerful that it leaves you breathless (and no, that isn't because it's difficult to sing both Amy and Paul's parts). The song is emotionally great and definitely worthy of that number one Evanescence scored, but I highly doubt they'll do it again, music has changed since their hiatus and it's really difficult for rock bands to make the top 10-0 let alone the top spot, but if anyone can change it, it will definitely be this band.