Songs about love, lost and found, are a young performer’s bread and butter. It’s the age when we’re meeting the world and searching, both in friends and romantic partners, for others like us who reflect and expand on our yearning. The end of love, in some ways, is much more momentous than its blossoming, and, as a result, its provided listeners with relatable subject matter since the days of minstrels. Aditi Iyer’s “Deleted Your Number” understands that very well.
It’s the new single from the 17-year-old Indian singer/songwriter and arguably her career high-water mark so far. She’s off to a fast start. Iyer’s preceding releases, two four-track EPs, made a big splash for such small affairs and landed Iyer airplay on music platforms throughout the world. Her reach extends far beyond the Far East and continues to grow with each new effort. There’s a soft inspired glow surrounding this work and ample stylishness.
It doesn’t sacrifice substance to achieve that. Jaded listeners may roll into the initial seconds of this track thinking to themselves, oh good grief, how many times have I heard this? It’s a kneejerk reaction. Persist past the opening seconds of “Deleted Your Number” and you’ll find yourself rewarded with a host of key elements separating Iyer’s new song from the pack.
The first is the straightforward yet uniquely turned language. Listeners are in familiar territory throughout “Deleted Your Number”, but Iyer already has a grasp on how to rephrase common scenarios in personal language that claims the experience as her own. The seamless synthesis of the words, her voice, and musical arrangement further distinguish the single from other pop fare today.
It’s pop music, yes, and quite unmistakably, but we can count Iyer among the select class of the genre’s practitioners able to transcend its presumed disposability. Synthesizers and their ilk dominate the song’s musical landscape, but it isn’t ever meaningless gloss hitting its marks and nothing more. The polished and energetic music has its flourishes. It isn’t overwrought or gaudy, however, and puts an emphatic exclamation point on the song.
It never runs on too long. She’s smart enough to know that listeners have little patience for songs overstaying their welcome and self-indulgence is a non-starter. It takes immense focus to pull emotions from your heart like she does and give them palatable musical shape without losing artistic control, but Iyer makes it sound effortless.
I expect this new song is a harbinger of greater things to come. We’re due for a third collection from Iyer and, if this is any indication of how her talent has advanced overall, future releases will likely catapult her profile several rungs up the ladder. If so, it is well-deserved. Aditi Iyer is a complete talent and taking leaps and bounds forward with each new release. “Deleted Your Number” has a timeless quality as a pop song, genre crossing appeal, and plenty of musical value. Rest assured, however, that it will not be the last we hear from her.
Chadwick Easton