Tessa Violet - "My God!"
Bright Pink Bops for your summer
Tessa Violet brings her newest album with more spotlight than she’s had to date. The model, actress, director, Youtuber, and vocalist has successfully harnessed TikTok over the last year or two to get her earworms into more ears. Several have gone viral (particularly “Yes Mom” and title track “My God!”).
This album brings a host of self-confident Indie Pop tracks, most of which are upbeat and incredibly catchy. If I’m limited to saying only one thing about Violet’s music - she certainly knows how to write a hook. Several songs also incorporate pseudo-Rock guitar solos, though most of the accompaniment is much simpler: keyboards, synthesizers (and other electronic elements), and drum machines. “Yes Mom” might have an actual bass. “You Are Not My Friend” switches to Pop Punk vibes for the album’s closer (discounting the demo/acoustic version of “Kitchen Song” that actually ends the album).
And when I say “self-confident”, I mean it. Most of the album is very much composed of songs about self-love, self-assurance, and self-worth. But there’s some organization to it, with the most confident songs front-loaded into the first five. And then there’s a turn with “Again, Again”, “Good Things Go Bad”, “Breakdown”, and “When The Curtain Falls” which gives us a solid breakup arc, thoroughly reminiscent of Kacey Musgraves’ star-crossed (2021).1
The final three songs form a healing arc with leads to a return to self-confidence for the finale, “You Are Not My Friend”. The first of these three, “Song Without a Title”, feels crucial to this arc’s success, as it cleverly calls back to several of the songs from earlier in the album. Overall, it’s a pretty effective arc that allows for Violet’s boppiest bops to shine and have a place in the album at-large.
However, there is a disparity in how much attention each song seems to have gotten. Some obviously feel like they’ve spent more time in the tumbler (“My God!”, “Yes Mom”, and “You Are Not My Friend”, for example), as they’re so much more polished than others. The ones that really felt egregious were “Good Things Go Bad” and “When The Curtain Falls”. Both are in the breakup arc, and both feature last second production add-ins which come in right at the end of the song and last for maybe fifteen seconds (high-flying, energetic guitar in the former, sad violin in the latter). Violet’s vocals and lyrics are still good, but the composition of these two feels incredibly lackluster, especially when “Again, Again” shows that she’s perfectly capable of producing a solid downbeat track.
I also didn’t love opener “Bad Bitch” - the energy is on overflow, it’s a tad repetitive, and spelling out words in songs is something that always feels like cheap filler. That said, this one feels like a misalignment of personal preference, rather than it being a genuinely bad song.
The album, despite its few, key weaknesses, is genuinely very good. I was very impressed with the success of its arc when I figured it out. Frankly, Violet’s interpretation of that particular concept just makes Kelly Clarkson’s attempt look feeble by comparison. While I’m not familiar with Violet’s earlier work, this album feels like one from an artist who is on a clear upward trajectory. I suspect that her next effort could, potentially, be downright breathtaking.
I highly recommend this one to lovers of Pop or Indie Pop, or anybody looking for a solid summer bop. You’ll definitely find that here.
Rating: Green
No, I won’t be shutting up about that album. Star-crossed is the benchmark for any other artist who writes a breakup concept album.