History Music / TessaViolet

* LyricalDissonance: Some of Tessa's darkest subject matter features in her catchiest songs. "Games" is notable for being about a lover who gaslights the protagonist and plays mind games that regularly drive them to tears and leave them doubting reality, and it's set to a powerful hip hop-inspired beat with a rising background choir. "Bored" is even more upbeat and energetic in instrumentation and style, and it seems to be about depression and nihilism. "I Don't Know Who I Am Without You" outright feels like a dance tune, and the lyrics are about the protagonist desperately trying to hide how hollow they feel after their ex tried to change them and left.

* FunWithHomophones: Some lyrics poetically make use of homophones or alternate meanings to words. "Games" rhymes "piece" and "peace" in its opening lines- "I don't want a piece of that / 'Cause I know there's no peace in that", and their usages contrast each other with the "piece" referring to the lover's mind games, which hold no "peace" for the protagonist. "I Don't Know Who I Am Without You" plays with dual meanings of the word "vacuum" in the line "But you left a vacuum in my life that sucked the air out of my lungs", where the vacuum is not only the emptiness that the lover left behind in their departure, but also the sucking pain of that wound.

* LyricalDissonance: Some of Tessa's darkest subject matter features in her catchiest songs. "Games" is notable for being about a lover who gaslights the protagonist and plays mind games that regularly drive them to tears and leave them doubting reality, and it's set to a powerful hip hop-inspired beat with a rising background choir. "Bored" is even more upbeat and energetic in instrumentation and style, and it seems to be about depression and nihilism.

** On ''Halloway'', every song counts except "Haze" and "On My Own"- "Dream" and "Not Over You" combine the Please Don't Go and the Claims To Be Over It But Is In Denial flavors, while "I Don't Get to Say I Love You Anymore" is of a more traditional I Wish We Were Still In Love flavor.

* IAmGreatSong: After the sad subject matter of ''Bad Ideas'', Tessa's next release was the single "Yes Mom", which opens with an assertion that you're a fan and have fantasized about them, and just keeps on going from there.

* UntitledTitle: The tenth track of ''MY GOD!'' is called "song without a title". It's a slow, melancholic BreakUpSong where the protagonist wishes their relationship with their ex could go back to what it used to be, and the title references how adrift they feel after the breakup.

* UntitledTitle: The tenth track of ''MY GOD!'' is called "song without a title".

** Starting with her many livestreamed UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic-era concerts, Tessa's gotten more into experimenting with fashion that explicitly paints her as powerful and sexy, culminating in "Yes Mom" and "Breakdown" where she dresses in [[SpandexLatexOrLeather shiny latex]] for the cover art and concert performances, and the album art for ''MY GOD!'', where she's wearing nothing but a crown, a strategically draped length of translucent tulle fabric, and her hand and arm covering her chest.

* TitleTrack: "Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled", and "Bad Ideas".

** Starting with her many livestreamed UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic-era concerts, Tessa's gotten more into experimenting with fashion that explicitly paints her as powerful and sexy, culminating in "Yes Mom" and "Breakdown" where she dresses in [[SpandexLatexOrLeather shiny latex]] for the cover art and concert performances, and the album art for ''MY GOD!'', where she's wearing nothing but a crown, a strategically draped length of translucent tulle fabric, and her hand covering her chest.

** Starting with her many livestreamed UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic-era concerts, Tessa's gotten more into experimenting with fashion that explicitly paints her as powerful and sexy, culminating in "Yes Mom" and "Breakdown", where she dresses in [[SpandexLatexOrLeather shiny latex]] for the cover art and concert performances.

* GenderNeutralWriting: Nearly all of Tessa's songs with the exceptions of "Broken Record", "Feelin'", and "Yes Mom" leave the gender of the narrator ambiguous, and most of them (save for a handful of songs on ''Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled'') also leave the gender of the object of the protagonist's affections unstated as well, which lets listeners imagine any sort of combination of sexes they prefer. This also has the secondary effect of making it [[TheCoverChangesTheGender easy for anyone to cover her songs without having to change pronouns]].

* GenderNeutralWriting: Nearly all of Tessa's songs with the sole exceptions of "Broken Record" and "Feelin'" leave the gender of the narrator ambiguous, and most of them (save for a handful of songs on ''Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled'') also leave the gender of the object of the protagonist's affections unstated as well, which lets listeners imagine any sort of combination of sexes they prefer. This also has the secondary effect of making it [[TheCoverChangesTheGender easy for anyone to cover her songs without having to change pronouns]].

** Starting with her many livestreamed UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic-era concerts, Tessa's gotten more into experimenting with fashion that explicitly paints her as powerful and sexy, culminating in "YES MOM" and "Breakdown", where she dresses in [[SpandexLatexOrLeather shiny latex]] for the cover art and concert performances.

* ShoutOut: According to a behind the scenes video, the music video for "I Like (the idea of) You" was deliberately crafted as an homage to Music/NancySinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walking". Tessa and her backup dancers wear baggy sweaters over black leotards and dark pantyhose with heeled black dancing shoes to evoke the minidresses, boots, and usage of ShesGotLegs from the original video, and the choreography is similar, as well.

* MindScrew: The music video for "Dream" is filled with disparate and assorted scenes and imagery that don't have much to do with each other and even less to do with the lyrics, and were apparently selected on the basis of how dreamlike they are, both in isolation and in evoking the RandomEventsPlot nature of [[RealDreamsAreWeirder most actual dreams]]. The end result manages to be incredibly beautiful and well-executed.

* MsFanservice: The music video for "I Like (the idea of) You" is a rare instance of Tessa being sexualized, between the 1960s-inspired choreography and costuming that shows off her legs. Usually, she tries to cultivate a 'pretty', or occasionally [[UnkemptBeauty unkempt]] aesthetic, and veering this close to 'sexy' was so odd for her that her manager took her aside and asked her if she was okay with being sexy. It does fit with the obsessive infatuation described in the lyrics, what with the bridge being about the protagonist giving themself over to the object of their affections to an unhealthy degree.