Violet’s brand of magic is enchanting in her third album, “My God!,” released in July, on which the 33-year-old artist intersperses high-camp anthems and breakup ballads atop minimal pop beats. It’s evident in a music video featuring the opener, “Bad B—-,” a hypnotic song about being a good witch — but a bad rhyming word — in which Violet poses as a classical statue come to life, and then a queen on her throne, declaring in a bubble-gum voice that she’s a “bona fide hit.”
In fact, she’s been something of a hit since around 2007, when, as a teenager, she started making vlogs online. Under the username Meekakitty, Violet was a trailblazing YouTuber, amassing over a million followers for her candid daily chats. But that was before she “thought of herself as an artist.”
“I feel like I’ve shaken that [YouTuber] title,” she says. “You need to be better at being an artist than you were at being an influencer.”
For the last decade, Violet’s focus has been on her music, but even in a different medium, she hasn’t lost the sincere voice that drew in fans since her earliest days online. It’s a big jump from the extravagance of her new album’s early songs to the softer melodies that grace the second half, but it’s in these later tracks that her self-confidence spell lifts, if only for a moment. In the tender “When the Curtain Falls,” she sings, almost to herself, “I wanna be somebody’s best friend.” The bottom drops out as she sighs and repeats the line.
“It’s overwhelming when you don’t know what a feeling is,” she says. “But when you can describe it and put a name to it, then you can look at it and see that it’s not as big. … I hope my songs can be tools for people to understand their own feelings.”
Violet walks the line between heartbreak and hype, not unlike other pop stars with brands built on empowerment — she’s closing some sets on this tour with “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, another anthemic artist from whom Violet says she takes inspiration. And, like Gaga, Violet says it’s her goal to give fans an opportunity to “celebrate themselves.”
“I’m called to help people get in touch with their own power,” Violet says. “People are so insecure, and they don’t know themselves; they don’t give themselves permission to celebrate who they are. And I’m like, ‘No, you’re a gift. Other people enjoy you. Why not you? You enjoy you, too.’”
Aug. 8 at 7 p.m. (doors open) at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. 930.com. $28.
