Shatter Me

On its face, I think incorporating violin into electronic music can work. However, I think the mistake here for me is making the violin solely a bombastic lead instrument throughout every song. It’s all peak and no valley, all flash and very little subtlety, if you catch my drift. A lot of these songs could benefit from more well written and layered violin accompaniments - like the more mellow arrangements on the track Night Vision. Let the violin slowly build up the mood around the electronics, making the sound more expansive. As it is, a lot of this record plays kind of like a Joe Satriani record: An impressive display of technical prowess with songs that end up feeling mostly indistinguishable from each other because they are all built for the purpose of showcasing the talent of the artist, rather than being well written and engaging.

I hardly ever heard something as uninteresting as Shatter Me by Lindsey Stirling. I suppose she is technically a good violin player, but what an slick, clean and commercial sounding piece of music this is. Music made by humans (not by AI) and still without a soul.

I remembered how revolutionary Stirling’s sound seemed when it first appeared on the scene, but the early 2010s were a musical eon ago. The violin-playing is exceptional, which is a shame given the electronic elements have aged about as well as milk left in direct sunlight and sound incredibly dated. The sterile production doesn’t help either, only reinforcing the divide between Stirling’s exciting string performance and the lackluster EDM accompaniment. A great idea at the time, but not one with staying power.

Christ alive

Odd vibe on this one, the very slick and processed violin delivered in this electronica setting with strong dubstep/trap-ish elements. The whole of the composition put me in mind of the kind of music you might find in a high-production value, fairly mainstream anime. I didn't hate it by any means but it had it had an overly produced pop flavor that buried the main event, the violin, somewhat for me.

Wow geez I haven't thought about Lindsey Stirling in a very long time. One of the most delightful side-effects of the 2010s dubstep craze was that a type of music that was previously mostly associated with DJs on uppers suddenly gained traction with steamers, E-Sports producers and other associated computer nerd subcultures, creating a window for absolutely buckwild fusions like this to thrive & proliferate. It's hard to overstate how big this and her previous album were in certain circles (gamer girls) when they came out. I don't stand by it enough to call what I'm feeling "nostalgia" exactly, but this really takes me back to an extremely specific part of my college years, which I gotta imagine is how people 10-15 years older than me feel about a lot of emo and pop-punk. The production on this one sounds super dated, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if 8 years from now the wheel keeps turning and there's renewed interest in something like this

The best songs where the ones she was a background player in. No doubt talented but every song was just like the last. We are Giants was by far the best track.

No idea how it got as popular as it got 1, but I respect it