October 10, 2012

A Dubstep Violinist? (Lindsey Stirling - album review)

Lately I've been more into music than I usually am... Så here's yet another post about a new album!

Lindsey Stirling entered America's Got Talent in 2010, and became known as the "Hip-hop Violinist". However, she got voted off after just a couple of weeks. Piers Morgan, one of the judges told her she was unmarketable and needed to be in a group. He also said that she was unable to dance while she played because that made her playing sound like "rats being strangled". At the time she said id was quite devastating, but it also made her determent to prove him wrong...

Shortly after, she was contacted by Youtube cinematographer Devin Graham (devinsupertramp) who wanted to make a music video with her. The result, the song "Spontanious Me", instantly became popular and got thousands of views! This marked the start of a great collaboration and an even greater Youtube carrear.


What's so different about her is that she brings so much more to her music and videos than normally expected from Youtube musicians. She's got a bobly personality that shines through and makes her stand out! Even though she plays the violin, which is a very classical instrument, she loves genres like rock, dubstep and just about anything with a good rhythm. The key is that she mixes the genres in such a perfect way so that just about everyone that hears her loves her music.

Another fantastic thing about her Youtube-channel are the videos themself. They are SO GOOD. Costumes, fantastic landscapes, thousands of camera angles, surprising locations... She's got it all. As of this date, her channel "lindseystomp" has got 870 116 subscribers and the incredible total of 144 million views!

She's also done a very famous medley of music from the videogame "Zelda", a "Lord Of The Rings" medley, and she cooperated with percutionist Peter Hollens on a "Skyrim" cover and, more recently, a "Game Of Thrones" cover.


Due to her success she recently released her first album, appropriately named "Lindsey Stirling". It can either be bought on iTunes or, like I did, directly from her website. It features a lot of the songs form her Youtube channel, but also a couple of new ones.

It's just as amazing as I knew it would be! Even though you don't get the visuals like you do watching her videos, the music itself is so good and varied itself you don't need anything else, really...  For some of her songs she's even added vocals here and there, and that made the songs stick out even more, and it removed the danger of the different tracs being too similar.

Favorite tracks: "Moon Trance", "Elements" and "Crystallize"

All in all... loved it!
Perfect for both enjoying really loud in my headphones and as background for my homework reading :)