"Crystallize" is a song by American violinist
Lindsey Stirling
Lindsey Stirling (born September 21, 1986) 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 pe ...
from her self-titled studio album ''
Lindsey Stirling
Lindsey Stirling (born September 21, 1986) 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 pe ...
''. The song was released as a music video on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
on February 23, 2012. The video had more than 42 million views at the end of the year, and was the eighth-most watched video of 2012. The song became Stirling's album's lead single due to its success. The song appeared on three
''Billboard'' charts and, according to
Nielsen SoundScan
Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...
, by April 2013 it had reached 234,000 digital sales. On February 4, 2014, almost two years after the release of the video, "Crystallize" earned Stirling's first
RIAA certified
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. gold record
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile meta ...
by selling 500,000 copies in the United States. At the end of 2013, "Crystallize" finished first on the year-end ''Billboard'' Classical Digital Songs chart.
On July 27, 2014, the official music video reached 100 million views, being Stirling's first YouTube video to do so.
Meaning
Speaking with
Artistdirect
ARTISTdirect is an American online digital media entertainment company.
Overview
Founded in 1994, it owns several websites, including artistdirect.com and artistdirectinterviews.com. These websites are a group of affiliate websites offering mul ...
, Stirling explained the background to the song: "It has a pretty deep meaning," she said. "Basically, it's about creating inner beauty in yourself first. It all comes back to research being done by a scientist (
Dr. Masaru Emoto
was a Japanese businessman, author and pseudoscience, pseudoscientist who claimed that human consciousness could affect the Properties of water, molecular structure of water. His 2004 book ''The Hidden Messages in Water'' was a The New York Times ...
) who studied the crystallization of water."
"Basically, he'd test out water and look at it at a magnified level as it crystallized in different environments," Stirling continued. "If it was in positive environments where good things were being spoken to it, the crystals came out beautiful. Whereas if negative things were said to these little vials of water, these crystals were these jagged shapes that were meaningless."
"When we surround ourselves eternally with positivity and we create healthy and positive environments and we do good things for people and ourselves, we're made up of 70 percent water so the crystals in your body create actual literal inner beauty," Stirling added. "That's what 'Crystallize' is about. It's about taking control of your environment, creating beauty within yourself, and therefore creating beauty outside. I know that's pretty deep, but that's what it's about."
Music video
The music video was filmed at the ice castles of
Silverthorne, Colorado
The Town of Silverthorne is a home rule municipality in Summit County, Colorado. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 3,887.
History
The town was named for Judge Marshall Silverthorn who served as the judge of the mine ...
. It was co-directed by Lindsey Stirling herself and
Devin Graham
Devin Graham (born July 29, 1983) is an American videographer who produces adventure and extreme sport videos on YouTube under the name devinsupertramp.Tim Nudd"Meet Devin Graham, Advertising's Daredevil".''AdWeek'', February 11, 2014. His chan ...
, with Graham as the
videographer
Videography is the process of capturing moving images on electronic media (e.g., videotape, direct to disk recording, or solid state storage) and even streaming media. The term includes methods of video production and post-production. It used ...
. It had over 42 million views at the end of 2012, and it reached number 8 on the list of the most-watched YouTube videos of that year. Since "Crystallize" was released, Stirling's popularity has increased considerably and it is the 2nd most-watched video on her YouTube channel with over 239 million views, behind Roundtable Rival which has more than 280 million views, both as of December 2020.
Charts and certifications
The song was a success worldwide, especially in the United States; on the Classical Digital Songs chart it held the number one spot for 39 non-consecutive weeks and, until March 8, 2014, it had been on the chart for 75 weeks.
Crystallize was also a moderate hit in Europe as it entered the Top 40 category in four European countries: Germany,
Austria,
Switzerland
and Bulgaria.
Charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
{{authority control
2012 debut singles
2012 songs
Lindsey Stirling songs
Songs written by Lindsey Stirling