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Grace VanderWaal

A Perfect Stargirl.

By Cordellia NovisPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Grace VanderWaal

It is indeed hard for a singer to have both a distinct voice and also pull up emotions throughout a performance, Although the Kansas City born Singer Grace VanderWaal makes it look easy and simple.

Grace Avery VanderWaal is an American singer and songwriter, known for distinctive vocals, often found on stage accompanied along with her ukulele. Born on 15th January 2004 to Tina and David VanderWaal, she showed an immense interest towards music from an early age, by singing and making up songs at 3. As she grew, she found inspiration by trying to recreate along with imaging what the specific character was feeling, simultaneously while watching films, TV shows, Movies etc. Her influence for playing the Ukulele was drawn by watching Twenty-One Pilots and Au Pair. After this she urged her mother to buy her the instrument, to which she refused, thinking she would never learn to play it. But her strong mind took her far enough to spending gift money she received for her 11th birthday to buy herself one, and watched YouTube Videos on how to play it.

Grace VanderWaal performing with her ukulele

In 2015, Grace recorded song covers, original songs accompanying herself besides the beloved ukulele, and posting them on YouTube. During 2016 she auditioned for Simon Cowell’s show, America’s Got Talent season 11, singing her original song “I don’t know My Name”, to which she received more than 100 million views on YouTube, ranking it to be the 5th trending in 2016. After the spectacular performance Howie Mandel chose her as his golden buzzer of the season resulting to move towards quarterfinals without the upcoming selection round, moreover with Simon Cowell mentioning “the next Taylor Swift”. Soon her song was termed as “emotional, catchy, quirky tuned”. For her quarterfinal and semifinal acts, she performed “Beautiful Thing” dedicated for her sister and “Light up the Sky” respectively, to which she was highly recognized by professionals. She casted her final spell by singing “Clay”, a song about dealing with bullies. At the end of the day, Grace VanderWaal was crowned as the winner of Season 11 on AGT. She was the 2nd female winner and second child act winner in the show’s history.

In the same year, VanderWaal signed a recording deal with Colombia Records to debut as a solo artist as an effect of her fame gained by winning AGT. Her first Extended Play(EP) “Perfectly Imperfect” included all four of her primal songs from AGT plus a collection of other songs such as “Gossip Girl”, Amazingly the singer’s EP debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at No.9, Furthermore making it the bestselling EP of 2016, While “Light The Sky” was featured as background music in Google’s “Year in Search 2016” video. Following she performed along with one of her earliest inspirations, Jason Marz at the 2017 Special World Winter Olympic Games held in Austria.

She released her album “Just the Beginning” on November 3rd 2017. Which comprised of her big hit “Moonlight”, “A Better Life”, “City Song”, “Sick of Being Told” and much more. In early 2019 the artist released a single “Stray” while creating a soundtrack song for the animated film “Wonder Park”.

Amid tough situations, in 2020 Grace VanderWaal appeared in her first movie “StarGirl” as the title character Stargirl Caraway, based on the novel of same name. She received favorable reviews for her role in the film.

Grace’s reputation has travelled to a very bright yet deep end of the industry. Many categorizes her voice as “endearingly croaky” when others called it “raspy” or “timelessly soulful”. Certain amount of critics praises her vocals to be similar to Taylor Swift, whereas some agree it to be close enough to Sia’s Vocals. “The songs wrote and performed on AGT were not only catchy but emotional and unique in her own way, a mix of raw and folk” the New York Magazine stated once.

Nevertheless, she has also received accolades Best Push Artist at MTV Europe Music Awards, Best New Artist at Radio Disney Music Awards in 2017. Billboard magazine named Grace to its 21 under 21 list in music’s youngest stars for 4 consecutive years from 2016-2019. Also following her receiving the award for Women in music- Rising Star by billboard. She was included into Forbes 30 under 30 music list making her the youngest person to be on the list.

By 2018, VanderWaal had accumulated 8 million followers collectively on social media. As of 2020, She has 3 million followers on Instagram, another 3 million on YouTube including a million on her Facebook page.

Grace VanderWaal might have not done much, but her small steps have aroused a huge wave, into the bargain her tough determination and courage has earned her an incomparable reputation together with a immense popularity unthinkable for her young age, she is often recognized for her deep-cutting lyrics and sharp visuals.

She is a great inspiration for many girls around the world to follow their dreams while working hard like she always mentions “Stars are dull compared to You and I” .

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About the Creator

Cordellia Novis

~Shine the best you can

when the time comes

your sunset will be beautiful~🖤

Lyrics and Article Writer

Thank you for following.

Love y'all.

Follow me on Twitter: @Seomin_Charu

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