Aditi Iyer Hits Radio-Driven Charts with Break-free Song ‘Deleted Your Number’

As she was preparing for her final 12th-grade math exam, Mumbai artist Aditi Iyer received the news that her April release, “Deleted Your Number,” was gaining major traction in Europe and the rest of the world thanks to heavy rotation on radio stations.

The traction was such that four weeks after permeating through the Internet, “Deleted Your Number” has reportedly made Iyer, 17, the youngest Indian solo artist to appear on international charts such as the Digital Radio Tracker (DRT) Mainstream Top 200 (where she’s at #140), World Indie Music Top 100 and the Euro Indie Music Chart (both at Number One). Iyer’s song is also at #60 on DRT’s Global Top 150 Independent Airplay Chart. She says about the feat, “I’m really proud that ‘Deleted Your Number’ could be exposed to more people from different backgrounds and it’s even more amazing to find that my song is actually charting in these countries.”

Iyer’s name appears alongside the world’s biggest pop artists – Ed Sheeran, Glass Animals, Justin Bieber and numerous others – which she terms a “major confidence booster.” Her song follows the artist’s 2021 EP Doll House, as she continues to hone in on melancholic yet cathartic pop. She says the success of the song is linked to a trial-and-error approach towards songwriting. “I was able to create ‘Deleted Your Number’ from a place of relatively more experience than any other song I’ve previously written. It’s been a work in progress.” She points to the break-free nature of the song – the relief of cutting ties with a friend or even a significant other – that also helps people interpret it in different ways. “It’s a minute detail that means a lot, [which is] something I wanted to explore in this track, after, say, my 2021 EP Doll House where I wrote about a lot of dramatic things that were huge milestones for people, but I strangely never explored the minute details.”

Having handled the song’s composition, Iyer made a concerted effort at writing a song made for contemporary radio and Top 40 charts. She adds, “I think sometimes you don’t really know what works and you have to try as many options as you can. I ended up realizing that I really liked ‘Deleted Your Number’ with this new sound. I do think that trying something new helped me, because you can’t do the same thing and expect different results. Of course, [composer-producer] Rohan Solomon was of great help in all this and [the song] couldn’t have been done without his valuable inputs.”

There’s more new music being readied to follow up “Deleted Your Number,” even as Iyer preps to start her undergraduate studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston this fall. “I’m so thrilled about that. I think it can really begin a new chapter of my life in terms of my music and my independence,” she says. 

Listen to “Deleted Your Number” below. Stream on more platforms here.