Chart Topper: Taking Over Me

Well, I had an event of historic proportions occur today. I had a song cross over the 100 play count threshold in iTunes for the first time. The song with that honor was “Taking Over Me” by Evanescence (from the album Fallen ). For those not familiar with iTune's play counter, it tallies one play for each complete playing of a song in iTunes or on any iPod that is sync'ed through that copy of iTunes. I've been using iTunes primarily since May 2004 when I became a full time Mac user, but most of those plays on this particular song come from September 2004 and beyond.

I really took note of the song, which may be my favorite from Evanescence, in Fall '04. It just seemed to fit for a variety of reasons, and so I listened more closely and became rather attached to it. It actually has some associations with the picturesque day in October of that year I felt compelled to write about last fall in my series “Nameless” (I never did finish the series, but the first parts were here and here).

At any rate, I digress. it's a good song. In general, Evanescence is a bit “harder” rock than I typically like, however, it is this hardness juxtaposed with Amy Hartzler's (nee Lee) voice, the orchestra scores and sometimes a pretty impressive choir that really makes the band interesting. Sometimes the choirs sing in Latin even, such as in “Whisper” from Fallen or “Lacrymosa” from the Open Door, the latter of which draws on the Requiem Mass/_Dies Irae_ by way of Mozart. Even in quieter pieces such as “My Immortal,” there is a contrast of the softness of the piano and the hardness of the guitars that take over at the end of the “Band Version.”

But, “Taking Over Me,” is something different. I cannot objectively define a reason, but I tend to think it is my favorite song from Evanescence. It is haunting and has a unique lead in. An earnestness to it makes it easy to relate to. Perhaps most importantly, there is something especially appealing about the movement from sorrow to hope in it. So, it is not entirely without merit that it was the song to take the 100 play honor.

In Other News: I noticed my post archive is messed up at the moment. It has long had a “known issue” that I've meant to resolve that makes it so that you can only see the last 20 posts in any given category, however SAFARI (my homebrewed CMS/blogware, not the web browser) now has a bug that makes it sort by something other than date, and a lot of old posts are showing up in the categories at the cost of hiding newer posts. I need to fix both issues, but in the mean time, here's your chance to (turn on booming announcer voice) relive favorite classic asisaid moments today! Yes, that's right, you can enjoy posts from as early as 2002 from the convenience of your own home. Call — ahem, I mean click — over in the category box today!