page_title: Lindsey Stirling
section_title: 2010–2012: America's Got Talent and debut studio album
hierarchical_section_title: Lindsey Stirling / Career / 2010–2012: America's Got Talent and debut studio album
caption_attribution_description: Lindsey Stirling performing at VidCon 2012 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.
context_page_description: Lindsey Stirling is an American violinist, songwriter, and dancer. She presents choreographed violin performances, in live and music videos found on her official YouTube channel, which she created in 2007.
  Stirling performs a variety of music styles, from classical to pop and rock to electronic dance music. Aside from original work, her discography contains covers of songs by other musicians and various soundtracks. Her music video "Crystallize" finished as the eighth-most watched video of 2012 on YouTube, and her cover version of "Radioactive" with Pentatonix won Response of the Year in the first YouTube Music Awards in 2013. Stirling achieved one million singles sold worldwide by August 2014. As of September 10, 2019, her Lindseystomp YouTube channel exceeded 12 million subscribers and over 3 billion total views.
  Stirling has been named in Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 In Music: The Class Of 2015. Forbes notes her quarter-finalist position on America's Got Talent season five in 2010, a No. 2 position on the Billboard 200 for her second album Shatter Me in 2014, and her 11 million subscribers on YouTube.
context_section_description: In 2010, at the age of 23, Stirling was a quarter-finalist on season five of America's Got Talent, where she was described as a "hip hop violinist". She impressed the judges on America's Got Talent, not only by mixing hip-hop, pop, and classical music on the violin, but by incorporating dancing with playing the violin, which she also does on her tours and official music videos. On a live-chat, Stirling explained, "It is very unnatural to dance while playing the violin. I had to practice so hard to learn how to do it, but now it is part of my expression and it comes naturally. I have to know a song perfectly before I can even begin to move. Once I know a song really well, I can then have fun dancing." Not only in her performances, but also with her music, dancing made a huge impact: "I loved dance music so I started with that and wrote 'Transcendence', 'Electric Daisy', and 'Spontaneous Me'."
  Stirling's performances were dubbed "electrifying" by the judges, and won the acclaim of the audience, but after she attempted to step up the dance level in her quarter-final performance, judge Piers Morgan told her: "You're not untalented, but you're not good enough, I don't think, to get away with flying through the air and trying to play the violin at the same time." Sharon Osbourne commented: "You need to be in a group. ... What you're doing is not enough to fill a theater in Vegas." In her blog, Stirling confided: "I was devastated at the results ... It was painful, and a bit humiliating; however, I had to relearn where it was that I drew my strength." Stirling decided to continue to embrace her unique style of performance, promoting herself on the Internet. In a 2012 interview she remarked: "A lot of people have told me along the way that my style and the music I do ... is unmarketable. But the only reason I'm successful is because I have stayed true to myself."
  Shortly after her performance on America's Got Talent, cinematographer Devin Graham contacted her in hopes of collaborating on a YouTube video together. They agreed to shoot a music video for her song, "Spontaneous Me." It was filmed the week of May 9, 2011. The video boosted Stirling's popularity, and she began making music videos for her YouTube channel regularly. Stirling's YouTube channel, Lindseystomp, which she created in 2007 and which is named after her first band Stomp on Melvin, is the main repository for her music videos. During 2011, the channel rapidly gained popularity and has over 3 billion total views and over 12 million subscribers, as of November 2018. Her music is featured on Pandora, Spotify, and Last.FM. Stirling also created a second YouTube channel, LindseyTime, in September 2012, in which she posts videos related to her life, vlogs, behind-the-scenes content, etc.
  Stirling has experimented in combining violin playing with hip hop and dubstep. Stirling's collaborations with other musicians and singers have included Amy Lee (Evanescence) (Love Goes On And On), Shaun Barrowes ("Don't Carry It All" – The Decemberists), Jake Bruene and Frank Sacramone ("Party Rock Anthem" – LMFAO), Tay Zonday ("Mama Economy"), Peter Hollens ("Skyrim", "A Thousand Years", "Game of Thrones" and "Star Wars"), Lzzy Hale ("Shatter Me"), Alisha Popat ("We Found Love"), John Allred ("Tomb"), Amiee Proal ("A Thousand Years"), Megan Nicole ("Starships"), The Piano Guys ("Mission Impossible"), Debi Richards (née Johanson) ("River Flows in You", "Phantom of the Opera"), Sam Tsui ("Heads Up"), Tyler Ward ("I Knew You Were Trouble", Thrift Shop"), Kurt Hugo Schneider ("Pokemón Dubstep Remix" and "A Thousand Years"), John Legend ("All of Me"), Chester See ("I Knew You Were Trouble"), and Pentatonix ("Radioactive", "Papaoutai"). She has also collaborated with the Salt Lake Pops orchestra and Alex Boye. Stirling's eponymous debut album was released on September 18, 2012, in conjunction with a North American tour that same month.
  In December 2012, YouTube announced that Stirling's song, "Crystallize", was the No. 8 top-viewed video of 2012 with over 42 million views.
caption: Stirling at VidCon 2012
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 50D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2012:07:02 06:22:06", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "248", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "972", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1086", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10496", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:06:30 09:53:41", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:06:30 09:53:41", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "61/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "160", "EXIF SubSecTime": "47", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "47", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "47", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4752", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3168", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "792000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1056000/199", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}