The Promising Talent of The Voice's Christina Grimmie

Glamour: They need to have you join them onstage then in Vegas.

Christina: Oh gosh, I would love to come out onstage. I kinda of want them to be like, "So this girl is a big fan from way back in the day and she won iHeart! So come out onstage!" [Laughs]

Glamour: Your YouTube account is zeldaxlove64. Why the name?

Christina: I made that account before I even knew I wanted to start posting music. I just made it so I could comment on videos and be on YouTube basically. As for the name, one of my favorite video games is The Legend of Zelda, so I just made it out of my fangirly-ness for Zelda. It was such a teenager middle-school account name! But I didn't want to lose it either, and when I started posting videos on it, of course I had no idea it was going to blow up like it did.

Glamour: What do you remember about that first song you uploaded? What were you hoping for?

Christina: I had no idea. I uploaded [my cover] of the Hannah Montana song, and I thought maybe people would look up the song [online] because at the time it was brand new. They had recently played it on the show when Miley was trying to pick between the two guys. [Laughs] So I thought maybe people would be searching for the song. Honestly, I was super self-conscious then about everything. If you watch my old videos, you'll notice I'm just very short in how I say things. I wasn't very outgoing because I didn't want people to be annoyed by me and wanted them to focus on my music. I've grown a lot since then, but I was just hoping that people would like the arrangement.

Glamour: As of 2013, you were in the top five of most subscribed musicians on YouTube. Did anything freak you out about that statistic?

Christina: Well, for me, it was like, "OK, I've got Rihanna, Justin Beiber, Selena Gomez, all lined up next to me." At first I thought, Maybe they're playing a prank on me? Music was more of a confirmation that that's what I should be doing at that point because fans were genuinely looking forward to my music every week. That was one of those mind-blowing moments.__

Glamour: The trailer for Jem and the Holograms paints a not-so-pleasant picture of how the music industry wants to change natural talent into marketing material. Did you ever feel that pressure?

Christina: Absolutely. There's been a lot of times where there was that pressure and it killed my creativity for a time. Honestly, so much that I had learned about the industry was mainly negative. Out of all the good things that there were, there were so many negative things coming out of it like, "You need to change this about yourself," or "No, no, you can't say this," or "You can't dress like that," and it was really hard on me. But I told myself, "I'm way too driven and love what I do way too much." I've grown up a lot too and now my mind is so much more open and I've learned how [things work] in this business. So I'm definitely learning the ropes a lot more now and prepared for it. However, I'm not going to compromise my morals, and that is one thing that I've always said. I'm just not going to push myself over the edge like that, and I'm just having a fun ride [now].