Evil Diva

You will remember her name.

"Let me tell you my evil scheme
I'm gonna enslave your minds with a predictable melody
And uncomplicated rhymes
And if I asked you to, you'd even change your name to 'Amy'
Because you're gonna yodel-odel-odel-obey me."

— Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb, "Yodel-Odel-Obey Me"

There is this one pop singer, who recently became the biggest thing since television. She's beautiful and came out of nowhere all of a sudden. Oh, and her voice is so wonderful and clear and great and, and, and... ah, let's just listen to her new single! ...Oh wait, how come I'm so tired suddenly? Why are the words "OBEY ME" stuck in my head? I don't remem... Oh, Crap!

Congratulations, you encountered the Evil Diva! With her magical voice, microphone, instrument, etc, the Evil Diva becomes a rising star and draws all of the world's attention to herself and her "talent". Her songs may seem better to you than they actually are, hypnotizing you, turning you into The Heartless, stealing your soul, or the like. She's also almost Always Female. In an Urban Fantasy setting, you can expect her to be a magical creature in disguise, usually a siren or a demoness. She may or may not overlap with the Dark Magical Girl, and as such, she has a tendency to pull a Heel–Face Turn.

The Hero may or may not be immune to the effects of her music. Their Sidekicks or True Companions are usually not. Her fighting style usually incorporates The Power of Rock, and her appearance usually signals a Musical Episode.

Compare Magic Idol Singer, of which this is the Evil Counterpart. Also compare and contrast The Diva, who may act like her but doesn't go out of her way to be a bitch. Subtrope of Idol Singer.

Not to be confused with the webcomic Evil Diva. Or with an evil Drama Queen or all-female examples of Evil Is Hammy, though both generally do apply to an Evil Diva.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Diva from Blood+. Her voice could activate "Chiropterans"; a chiropteran is created by a human ingesting a chemical substance made by the series' Nebulous Evil Organisation. This is a downplayed version as Diva's voice is "merely" used to activate the evil component in people who ingested it (ice cream bars handed out at an air force base during a tour segment of Diva, as a test case, followed by a world-wide distribution of the chemical, it being included in dozens of popular and generic food items). She is also less interested in the Evil Plan than her primary chevalier.
• Miku Izayoi from Date A Live made her debut as this, being a mysterious, nationwide popular idol who broke into stardom with her captivating voice without appearing in person. She turns out to be a Spirit that Does Not Like Men with a sociopathic personality who uses Mind-Control Music to enslave the girls that she takes fancy on, and she spent the latter half of the second season as Evil Diva before she mellows out from her newfound trust in Shidou. Late in her arc, Miku revealed that she was a rising idol who had her career ruined by a false scandal which turned her former (male-majority) fans against her and lost her voice when she needs it the most. Though she managed to regain her voice (courtesy of Phantom), her opinion on men were rock bottom until she encountered Shidou who genuinely cares about Tohka and is willing to risk his life to fulfill his Declaration of Protection.
• Misa Amane from Death Note is an Evil Diva by the second arc. She's a model and actress by day, and by night, she's the Second Kira. Not to mention her room is full of Gothic ornaments and she hangs out with occultist friends.
• Subverted in Descendants of Darkness. Maria Wong seems to fit this at first... but it turns out she was a mentally-destroyed Idol Singer, who was turned into a sort-of vampire by Muraki after she was Driven to Suicide to escape from her abusive mother/manager. In reality, Maria is FAR closer to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds than this trope.
• Corona from Destiny of the Shrine Maiden, who joins the Orochi after she loses her fame. It doesn't help that she already had very severe issues before that. In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, however, Corona's life is retconned and she's able to be a successful Idol Singer without either being raped or having to resort to prostitution, presumably because either she managed to do things in another way, or the fans are more appreciative to her. Or the guy that suggested prostitution to boost her fame even for a bit no longer existed.
• EL: the masked terrorist "Gimmick", who is revealed early on to be Reiko, the purple-haired idol singer/assassin seen in the opening of the anime.
• Glitter from Hamtaro is not powerful or magical, though she is incredibly bitchy and possessive (also doubles as Nice Character, Mean Actor) - going as far as to drive Laura away from Travis, who she has fallen in love with.
• Sharon Apple from Macross Plus turns into this after being illegally implanted with a military chip by one of her two creators, and uses her newfound abilities (hypnotic voice included) to take over Macross City in an attempt to show her love to Isamu by killing him. Ironically, the one who destroyed her was her other creator..
• Aya Asia from Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro. She's not exactly evil, but she can blow your brain with her song.
• Megazone 23's Eve was a not-so-evil version of this; she was the Virtual Celebrity public face of the master computer that maintained the Masquerade for the titular City in a Bottle. A military junta eventually manages to take control of enough of Eve's systems to make her circulate propaganda for the new world order.
• Alala from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, but only in the anime. All of the Winged Ones use Magic Music for evil, but anime!Alala goes through the Evil Diva plot and targets civilians to brainwash into fanboyism.
• Lunar of My Bride is a Mermaid. She's not straight-up evil, per se, but she certainly acts like a bitch most of the time.
• While not evil per se, Onpu Segawa from Ojamajo Doremi was an Idol Singer who used her magic for her own selfish desires, such as using Mind Control to make herself look even better than she already was. Not only that, she could use forbidden magic without the negative side-effects thanks to a magical charm from her mentor. She eventually does a Heel–Face Turn and joins up with the main group when they save her from the punishment when said charm rots away from overuse.
• Sailor Moon:
  • In the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal, Mimete of the Witches 5 is an idol and uses her music as a method of brainwashing. It's pretty apt that her counterpart Senshi is wannabe idol Sailor Venus. In the first anime, Mimete's a wannabe idol instead of an actual one and eventually ends up on television. Forever. One of Mimete's minions in the anime is U-Tahime, who even looks like an opera singer.
• Subverted in Seven Mortal Sins. The Demon Lord of Melancholy, Astaroth, is living on earth and using the internet to become an Idol Singer. Lucifer immediately guesses she's doing it to claim more human souls, but this turns out to be a false assumption. Astaroth is a Token Good Teammate who just loves singing and doesn't care about gaining Followers. She's more than happy to give up her throne in Hell, to focus on her music.
• Utau Hoshina from Shugo Chara! rips out the Egg of Dreams from the hearts of her fans. Until she has her Heel–Face Turn, that is.
• Ellen "Siren" Kurokawa in Suite Pretty Cure ♪ is the "Diva of Minor Land", able to summon Monsters of the Week with her voice. She later pulls a Heel–Face Turn.

Comic Books

• In The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, the eponymous jazz saxophonist in "The Siren Song of Circe O'Shaughnessy" makes her listeners commit burglaries for her.
• After Black Canary becomes a singer, and is assigned to a band by the record company, the band's former lead singer Bo Maeve becomes a supervillain in retaliation.
• One of Adam Warren's Gen¹³ stories had a twist on this: although the song "Happy to Be Happy" caused most of the effects of this trope, it turns out that the singer wasn't responsible. The song itself was a hyper-advanced Ear Worm that was trying to spread itself to gain extra brainpower.
• Scott Pilgrim has Envy Adams, one of Scott's exes who found massive success in the music world and has transitioned from cute geek girl into full-on Alpha Bitch. That said she isn't so much evil as a Jerkass with hints of Jerk Ass Woobie.

Films — Animation

• The Dazzlings from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks. They dress like Idol Singers just like every other character who appears on stage, yet they have the additional ability to compel the students of Canterlot High into turning the school's rock concert into a competition to sustain their craving for disharmony.

Films — Live-Action

• The title characters in Josie and the Pussycats (2001) become like this, albeit unwittingly. Josie herself winds up getting brainwashed with subliminal messages in order to turn her into The Prima Donna who will break up the band and pursue a solo career, since MegaRecords was getting annoyed with Melody and Valerie and felt that Josie could sell more records on her own. This was all masterminded by Fiona, the diva-ish CEO of MegaRecords and a more conventional example of this trope. While not a singer herself, she was the one responsible for putting subliminal messages into her label's music in order to sell consumer products to teenagers. Her real goal, however, was to use the messages to get people to like her and look up to her as a fashion idol, having never gotten over the brutal humiliation she suffered in high school for her bad teeth and her lisp.
• Hot Witch Alisa in Night Watch, played by Russian pop star Zhanna Friske.

Live-Action TV

• The would-be assassin in the first episode of Merlin. The singer was a disguise, a glamor, but she still put everyone into a coma-type thing so she could kill Uther and Arthur and only failed due to Merlin's intervention.
• Mio Kuroki from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, an Idol Singer whose popularity rivals Minako Aino's. She is also a perfect example of Uncanny Valley Girl since she has a facade of a sweet caring wholesome girl, fitting in the classical image of an Idol Singer, but is nothing but pure evil and jealousy.

Music

• Very common in opera. Almost every major soprano — and quite a few mezzos — have been accused of being this. Whether they actually are or not, eh, it's something else.
• Billie Eilish plays up this image, with one of her most iconic lyrics being "I'm the bad guy... duh!". That said, it's all just an act, with her being closer to a Perky Goth in real life.
• Poppy's original persona was this, a robotic performance-art parody of teen pop and J-pop music filled with ironic Lynchian creepiness and implications that she was controlled by The Illuminati. Later on, however, she underwent a Genre Shift to straight Heavy Metal, especially after breaking from producer Titanic Sinclair.

Tabletop Games

• Changeling: The Lost: The "Pied Piper" DJ Hamlyn is an egotistical, hedonistic Pornomancer who feeds — literally — on the adoration of his audience and enhances his performances with Glamour and Emotion Control. He also kidnaps people to trade to The Fair Folk for the Fantastic Drug to which he's addicted.
• Dungeons & Dragons: The Bard Character Class relies on tons of Charisma, granting Magic Music and plenty of mind-affecting powers, which makes for a dangerous combination in an Evil-aligned Bard with no moral qualms about using them on hapless citizens.

Video Games

• Lord Raptor from Darkstalkers, at least in the backstory, was a male instance of this. The OVA series even includes a scene where he delivers another performance merely to suck up everyone's souls.
• "The Trickster" Ji-Woon Hak in Dead by Daylight is a male example, a vain K-pop idol who let the rest of the Boy Band he was part of die in a fire so he could embark on a solo career and have all their fame for himself, all while telling the press afterwards that he tried to save them. After that, he became a Serial Killer who kidnapped and murdered people and then incorporated their screams into his songs. As murder replaced music as his primary artistic outlet, the quality of the latter began to slip, and his fed-up producers and label executives responded by restricting his creative freedom. He responded in turn by torturing them all to death during a "private performance", leaving as the Sole Survivor the producer Yun-Jin Lee who made him a star in the first place (and who was starting to suspect that Ji-Woon was responsible for the mysterious murders that followed him at every concert) as a reward for her efforts to give him the fame he deserved. It was here that the Entity claimed both him and Yun-Jin.
• One-Hit Wonder '80s pop star Bibi Love in Dead Rising 2, although she's not so much the "Take Over the World" variety as she is the "go crazy and kidnap people during a Zombie Apocalypse" variety. Unlike the game's other psychopaths, she snaps out of it and can be rescued.
• Emogame 2 has, as its main villains, The Friends Theory, a band formed by the cast of Friends that uses the power of MTV and Subliminal Seduction to turn America into a nation of soulless, corporate, yuppie zombies.
• Vita Clotilde of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. A famous opera singer with numerous fans, she also moonlights as "Misty," host of a radio show in the town of Trista where most of the first game takes place. And as an extraordinarily powerful witch nicknamed "the Azure Abyss" whose songs can project images over long distances, mind control her enemies, and cause large-scale destruction. She's also a higher-up in Ouroboros, helps mastermind the assassination of the chancellor and the course of the Erebonian civil war, and serves alongside Crow and Duke Cayenne as co-big bad in the second game.
• Linda from Okage: Shadow King ends up doing this, albeit accidentally. She hypnotized the entire city of Madril into loving her singing, not aware that she had somehow absorbed some of Evil King Stan's magic power. Upon finding out what she was doing, she runs off to her dungeon and fights the party because she thinks it is training from her "Coach", Stan. Upon her defeat, the power goes back to Stan, and she cheerfully joins the party.
• Courtney Gears of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal could mind control fellow robots with her songs, though the theming was fairly obvious. Unlike most of the other examples, she's a sadist sociopath who tortures people for fun and has no qualms about using Loony Fans (such as Skidd) as test subjects. When Ratchet discovers her true agenda and a video recording of her Moral Event Horizon, she pulls him into her dance lair and fights him with a Boss Remix of her only known song.
• Clyostra Direfin in Total War: Warhammer II was a Bretonnian opera singer who, on her way to the High Elves to give a performance, steered her ship into a storm rather than be delayed and subsequently drowned. However, her rage at being denied was so great that she became a banshee Ghost Pirate who wants to sink Ulthuan beneath the waves so she can finally give her performance.

Web Animation

• The third episode of Helluva Boss introduces the succubus pop star Verosika Mayday. Part of her work is to travel to Earth during Spring Break in a Human Disguise, where she performs on stage while using her succubus power as a Charm Person to enflame the entire crowd's lust until they dissolve into a sinful orgy.

Web Comics

• The Songster from Axe Cop, in spite of being male, is a world-famous singer whose songs have Reality Warping powers that he uses for mind control to start with. Axe Cop is immune because he wears earplugs because he hates all concerts that are not by himself or Johnny Cash. Mind you, that also causes him to miss what's going on and be unable to stop it.
• Gog-Agog from Kill Six Billion Demons has a monopoly on entertainment in Throne and is the biggest (or indeed, only) entertainment star in the hub of the multiverse. She is also a Mad God Worm That Walks who can turn other people into copies of herself by infecting them with a piece of herself, which has some... Not-so-nice implications about any would-be competitors in the entertainment industry. The Tournament Arc reveals she's responsible for arranging Solomon's tournament because until Solomon cut a deal with her she would assimilate and devour most of the competitors because she was feeling left out.
• Superidol is all about a Vocaloid-esque Japanese Idol Singer named Rei Rei, who becomes an international obsession. So many people want to be like her that they get surgery to look like her and act like her regardless of gender, slowly leading to an Assimilation Plot.

Western Animation

• One episode of Animaniacs has the Brain taking on the persona of "Bubba Bo Bob Brain", who has "calculated every ingredient necessary to become a country music superstar".
• Ember McLain from Danny Phantom. She is in this trope’s page image. She's a ghost in a rock band whose powers get stronger when people say her name. While most of her fans are brainwashed, she does have genuine fans. Ember has one of the most extensive backstories out of the ghosts, as her Villain Song is all about it and Word of God later confirmed it. Her Freudian Excuse is that she was an unpopular girl who was asked out as a prank. She waited all night but the boy didn't come. When she went home she was too exhausted to wake up when a fire broke out and died in her sleep.
• The Fairly Oddparents: After a stint at being a supervillain because Timmy stole attention away from his magic show, Mr. Bickles finds himself on the receiving end when Britney Britney crashes his act with her own supervillain persona, the Platinum Princess, because she got kicked out of Vegas to make way for his new show. Played for Laughs, of course.
• Pizzazz from Jem qualifies. Vain and egotistical, she wants the whole world to know who she is and half the songs the Misfits sing are either about how great she is or what a bitch she is. Arguably, though, Pizzazz is something of a deconstruction, as her desire for fame stems from a largely loveless childhood and a father who spoiled her rotten.
• Experiment 624: Angel from Lilo & Stitch: The Series. She appears irresistibly attractive to all the other experiments and her voice has the power to reverse the morality of every experiment made before her, and thus, only Stitch (626) and Reuben (625) are immune. Probably wouldn't work on 627 either.
• Vaingloria in Phantom 2040 is a singer employed by Rebecca Madison to brainwash the masses. While she loves the fame, she's something of a Punch-Clock Villain when it comes to the brainwashing. Voiced by Debbie Harry.
• Dr. Doofensmirtz from Phineas and Ferb tries to be the Spear Counterpart to this trope in "Bubble Boys". He wears a cowboy hat that makes his voice hypnotic, making whoever is listening to his song want to obey him.
• Sour Grapes from Strawberry Shortcake is a parody of this with her trademark ear-splitting vocalize she uses when she's excited or when she wants to annoy people.
• Tiffany Javelins, a.k.a. the Sinister Songstress was this in her first appearance (before her Heel–Face Turn) in Teamo Supremo.
• Ricky Mathis from Totally Spies! is an unwitting male example, being manipulated by someone who has world conquest as his goal.

---