Awesome / Lindsey Stirling

• Lindsey got her start on the fifth season of America's Got Talent. Judge Piers Morgan told her: "You're not untalented, but you're not good enough 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." Shortly after her performance on America's Got Talent, cinematographer Devin Graham contacted her in hopes of making a YouTube video together. This was all it took to launch her career. Today, she is on tour internationally, and is one of YouTube's highest earning stars, having 14 million subscribers to date, as well as having flown whilst playing the violin when doing a "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop. Winner Michael Grimm is still only playing in Vegas and opening for a few acts.
  
  Oh, and this is all after overcoming a serious fight with depression and anorexia nervosa.
• Her Skyrim video. It's not only made with one man's voice doing several shouts over and over in multiple tracks, but there's also a fight between her and Peter Hollens. Her character wins.
  • Not to mention that Peter's character was using a sword, while Lindsey's character used only her violin bow.
• This video of her Halo Medley with William Joseph. The music is pure awesome on its own, but all through the video Lindsey comes across as an Action Girl once again, quite casually dodging bullets and at one point ducking under a rocket launcher blast, all without even missing a beat. She also eventually retaliates with a rotating gun turret at the end.
• She was invited to perform her original song Elements with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square.
• Her collaboration with Owl City, "Beautiful Times".
• Her second album, Shatter Me, debuted at #1 on the iTunes charts.
• Shatter Me is such an inspiring story, based on Lindsey's story about her eating disorder and depression.
  • Lost Girls continues that story, telling the raw and honest story about recovery and how it's not easy and even tempting to go back to what was not good for us. Kudos to the ballerina refusing to go back in her snow globe!
• To this day, Roundtable Rival is her most viewed music video, nearing 400 million viewers!
• She performed the theme from Dragon Age: Inquisition live at the first ever Video Game Awards, dancing and all.
• In 2017, she was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars. Put this in perspective: She had just experienced a breakup, was releasing a Christmas album, planning her first Christmas tour which meant traveling all over the country and training while doing all the tour stuff, she had a rib injury during the season (which led to her almost having to drop out) and by the end, she was exhausted and stumbling while practicing the last dance. Before she was on camera, she thought of her late father (believing in guardian angels) and by the time the camera rolled, she killed it and has said that last dance was the best one she had done. She may have won 2nd place, but she still felt like a winner that night.
  • All season, she was learning how to dance professionally, which she's wanted since she was a kid. But come the Freestyle dance and she got to show to people again her talents when she busts out the violin! In that moment, we heard a sneak peek of Underground BEFORE it was an official song.
• Touring with Amy Lee and Evanescence in a co-headlining tour. Since 2017, they've also collaborated together for each other's music.
• Carol of the Bells. Not only is it a famous cover of the classic song, it has many viewers and is one of her top videos watched (especially around Christmas time), it is used so much on Tik Tok and became a trending song there and on Instagram that there are thousands of videos using that song, AND it was once a trending song in the SUMMER.
• The Arena. Lindsey gets the chance to show her dancing skills.
  • Anytime she dances with Derek Hough like in Between Twilight.
  • Anytime she dances like in Stampede and First Light.
• The Artemis album as a whole is amazing as it shares the story of one's journey to reclaiming their light. The music video visualizes how badass and majestic said goddess is, complete with Lindsey's dancers from tour.
• Til the Light Goes Out had a music video that was very cinematic. Have we mentioned the album also has a series of comics?
• The Home for the Holidays special in 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lindsey and her crew went through hoops (isolating, testing) to make a Christmas special for fans. The big moment in the special is when we see she learned to hair hang! The behind the scenes that plays before this shows how insanely difficult it is, physically and mentally, and we see that entire process for a few minutes and how each day was different for Lindsey. Good or bad. When you finally get to the Crystallize sequence, you find yourself holding your breath and in awe that she kept it together all the way! It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Contrary to Piers Morgan's comment, she sure got away with flying through the air and playing violin at the same time.
  • And contrary to Sharon Osbourne's comments, she's filled a theater in Vegas.
• A small but equally awesome moment: during one of her AMP streams, it was addressed that coming out of the pandemic, the way Lindsey and her crew managed things for tour helped other artists get an idea how they could go out and perform again.
• Her cover of Kashmir. It trended on Instagram and Tik Tok, and she got to play it live at Lollapalooza in Paris - to 50,000 people, which is enough to fill a stadium!
• Eye of the Untold Her. It's an incredibly powerful and inspiring song and the music video (featuring past, present and future versions of her) takes us through Lindsey's life. Her 2010-self meets her characters in other music videos such a in Crystallize (including her doing aerials in 2020), Roundtable Rival, The Arena, her Artemis characters, even the ballerina from Shatter Me all return and they all show that even though the future is still hard at times, it is all worth it to keep going. And the voices we hear from Piers and Sharon at the beginning subside at the end when Lindsey decides to believe she's not good enough YET.

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