Artemis: If you want to fall in love with Lindsey Stirling, start here

Lindsey Stirling released her first self-titled album in 2012. Fast forward to 2019, when the release of ARTEMIS may be set to advance her career to heights a hip-hop violinist has never reached before.

For over a week now, I have been searching for the answer to only one question: How do I express in only words on a page how much 51 minutes of violin music has changed me?

In the dozens of times I have listened to Artemis since its full release, I have come to the realization that Lindsey Stirling — master of strings, creative genius, composer of wonders beyond even a lifelong musician’s comprehension — must also be a goddess (perhaps not of the mythical Greek variety, but of melodic storytelling). The kind of storytelling that has the power to leave people different at the end of a song than they were when it began.

While you may have heard of this violinist by name — you may have even heard a song or two; she has become quite a popular performer on the live stage — you may have yet to experience what I now call “the Lindsey effect.”

It is my theory that for everyone in the world — whether they’re a fan of instrumental music or claim to despise it — there is a Lindsey Stirling song that will come to define who they are, or who they hope to be, as a person.

This particular song — your song — will make you feel like you’re falling in love. Not with another person or even with a piece of music, but with yourself and with the world you inhabit.

Perhaps you have yet to find yours. Allow me to officially recommend that, from this point forward, if you aren’t a fan of Lindsey Stirling’s music and you want to be. If you have lost sight of who you are and want to rediscover your place in this world, ARTEMIS must be the starting point of your journey. Where you go from there is up to you.

This is a collection of songs that will leave even your least favorite still playing on endless loops in your mind long after you’ve hit pause. That is the blessing and the curse of Artemis: Once you hear it, you will never forget it.

Whether it’s one song or the whole album, it will stay with you. It may never leave you.

Artemis is not an anthology of an artist’s random creations packaged together and shipped out to the masses. It is a story with a beginning, middle, and end with the power to speak to each individual it encounters, each song leading into the next, a soundtrack of melodies with only brief spaces in between.

You can pick out individual songs, you can pick and choose which ones to play on repeat (and you will), but the true experience, the one that will move you to tears, requires starting from the beginning and listening straight through to the end.

This is traditionally how I consume a new album, whether it’s from an artist I am familiar with or one I am hearing in-depth for the first time. My usual method is to stay up until the midnight release and wait for the tracks to download. At this point, the house and world are quiet; I am the only one awake. I grab my headphones and a cup of tea, I sit on the bathroom floor where there are few distractions and even fewer chances I will be interrupted, and when the music is ready, I hit play. I close my eyes and I listen straight through. Always once, sometimes twice.

But I knew Artemis was different the moment the first two tracks had passed. These had already been released, and I was too familiar with them to achieve that “first-time-listen” buzz.

Enter “Till the Light Goes Out.” Beat one: Lindsey Stirling’s electric violin and mesmerizing voice fill my ears in unison. I am transported away from my reality and find myself in some kind of fairytale set to music. I’m a nobody about to embark on a grand adventure. I hold my breath and wait for the beat to drop — in the Lindseyverse, the beat always drops — and when it does, I am gone, in another world, and there is no turning back. And why would I want to?

And this just keeps happening. Track after track. I forget where I am, what time it is. I forget who I am, that I have to wake up in less than five hours for work, that I have reasons to be sad. There is no sadness in this music — not the kind that drags you down. Here, in Artemis, you are only lifted up. There is nothing but hope.

Another thing about a soundtrack that takes you away from everything you thought you knew: It doesn’t matter how tired you are, how ridiculous you always look when you dance to a song that’s meant to inspire you to move. You do it anyway. You dance.

So by the time I’m returned to myself and my reality, it’s nearly 2 a.m., my cup of tea has long since cooled. I’ve lost count of how many times I have let this album play, and I am exhausted. I have been dancing my heart out, alone, to the sounds of a stranger playing a violin, for almost two hours straight.

And I am happy. No, I am something beyond that. I am inspired. I am moved. I am how it feels to realize all your dreams have come true. I am how it feels to conquer the world. And I haven’t even moved beyond these four walls. I am still here, where I began, but I have changed.

If you’ve never listened to Lindsey Stirling play the violin, if you’ve never seen her perform or experienced the intensity of her music, it’s challenging to comprehend how a woman with a bow and strings can change a person without knowing they exist.

So to understand Artemis, you must understand several things: One, that this is the story of a journey, and if you are not prepared, it will sweep you away without warning, and you will have to stop and give yourself moments of silence to breathe. And there is no time for breathing when you are busy transforming.

It’s also essential to understand how far Lindsey Stirling and her music have come since her infamous America’s Got Talent performance in 2010. Thanks to years of hard work and dedication, violin and dance lessons, a willingness to create amidst life’s biggest tragedies — and, admittedly, major improvements in the sound quality of electric violins as a whole — her albums have progressed significantly. They’ve gone from minimally produced collections of impressive violin playing set to background tracks to full, almost orchestral numbers meant to be performed on the world’s most spectacular stages.

As Lindsey Stirling has grown as an artist, so has her sound. The electric violins are crisper, the wooden violins are warmer. Where once her YouTube videos featured her and her violin dancing alone, they now display extravagant sets filled with performers — as they should. The music is too big for just one person. It deserves a whole cast.

Perhaps the most unique thing about an album composed of mostly instrumental tracks is that every person who encounters it will experience it differently depending on their current circumstances. The music can be whatever you want it to be. Whatever you need it to be. It will speak to you in whatever way you ask it to. And don’t be surprised if you walk away feeling like a version of yourself you haven’t known in a very long time. It happened to me. If you allow it, it can happen to you too.

Where Sitrling’s 2017 release, Brave Enough, was an album born in a time of darkness for its creator, Artemis was clearly born of hope. Of peace. Of the belief that there’s plenty more good to come in the days and years ahead. And if you listen closely, if you let go and allow yourself to become part of the music, you will feel it too. The hope. The peace. The belief in the small pockets of good scattered throughout our world.

If you are struggling to find the light in your darkness —

If it’s been a long time since you danced alone —

If you’re desperate for peace in times of uncertainty —

If you just want to believe, even for a moment, that everything is going to be OK —

Start here. Here is where your journey will begin.

Here is where you will find the you you’ve been missing all this time.

Have you listened to Lindsey Stirling’s newest album? What was your experience like?