On August 13, 2014, the top 10 hits of the Hot Dance / Electronic Albums were populated by someone who is from the early dance scene of the early EDM era.
Lady Gaga was at no. May 10 Artpop, Avicii was with true, Daft Punk clocked their 64th week on the map with Random Access Memories, The revelation rode high on no. May 3 Decide and Diplo’s Random White Dude Be Everywhere was run in place.
Just above him sat a woman whose work was rooted in electronic music, but who also expanded far – including charts such as the Billboard Hot 100, the Billboard 200, and Billboard‘s Classical Albums and Classical Crossover Albums charts. On August 13, 2014, Lindsey Stirling was rising to no. 1 on Hot Dance / Electronic Albums with her second LP, Shatter Me.
Stirling’s second album to reach that position (following her eponymous debut in 2012), Shatter Me was a dozen tracks of the bass music / violin fusion that Stirling had made a breakout star on YouTube, and then on America’s Got Talent, where she finished it to the quarterfinals. “You have to be in a group,” Sharon Osbourne told Stirling when she was voting. “What you do is not enough to fill a theater in Vegas.”
That, of course, would be untrue – with Stirling’s 2014-15 tour behind Shatter Me filling theaters not only in Vegas, but more than 40 other theaters around the country.
During this time, dubstep – or “brostep”, as the more aggressive and nuanced American version of the genre is often ridiculed, – took a moment, with Skrillex breaking down doors for the genre and the American EDM boom in general. with his insanely aggressive, Grammy winning sound and the thousands of artists who follow in his wake. “Skrillex was what made me fall in love on dubstep,” Stirling said Billboard while on the red carpet at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards.
But one would never accuse Stirling, a classically trained violinist raised in a Mormon community in Arizona, of Skrillex style – as of anyone else. She had been posting her work on her YouTube page since 2007, and millions of followers gathered to become one of the platform’s first influencers through a sound that amalgamated galloping violins, heavy electronic beats, rock guitar and a sort of spritely whimsy. Imagine the music from that scene Titanic where Rose and Jack dance a jig under deck with the habits, but with much heavier production and much more whiskey. As emphasized by Stirling’s accompanying dance, Shatter Me was dual grace, delicate and music to headbang.
“This album,” she said in a 2014 interview, “is all about self-discovery and breaking free from the limitations and barriers we place on ourselves, and the limitations the world places on us.”
Shatter Me won Best Dance / Electronic Album at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards, defeated true, Decide, Calvin Harris’ Motion, and Skrillex ‘ Recession. The album spent a total of 19 weeks at no. 1 to Dance / Electronic Albums in 2014-15, still Stirling’s longest stay on the map.
“Crazy,” Stirling said in that same BBMAs interview, “because I’m a violinist, right? Sometimes I have to remember – that I’m a violinist, and I’m on the dance charts, and that’s kind of of amazing. “
Stirling’s latest song – the Kiesza collaboration “What You’re Made Of” – was released yesterday (August 12).
