Vardaan Arora Preps New EP with Singles ‘Pretty Please’ and ‘Good Things’
Indo-American pop artist talks about following up his debut EP ‘Heartbreak on the Dancefloor’ from 2020, making music in the TikTok and Reels era and how he would love to play in India
Indo-American singer-songwriter Vardaan Arora. Photo: Rajid Selim
Indian-origin American pop artist Vardaan Arora had a slew of singles come out since his 2020 EP Heartbreak on the Dancefloor but he says he was “itching to work on a longer project.” With two out of four songs – “Pretty Please” and “Good Things” – out so far from his upcoming EP, Arora is now back at it.
He says, “I find it fulfilling to write songs that come together like pieces of a puzzle, it just gives them more purpose.” It wasn’t exactly easy to reach that point. Arora says he felt “pretty uninspired and burnt out towards the end of last year,” so starting to make these songs was difficult. “But ironically, because of that phase of feeling down, inspiration struck me. I decided to write about those feelings, and ideas just started to pour out,” he adds.
One of those songs was “Pretty Please,” a bouncy, dance-pop tune that released on Sept. 27 and was among those that was “born out of frustration” according to Arora. He adds about the making of the song, “I wrote it a few months ago when the melody for the hook entered my head — I immediately recorded it as a voice note and sent it over to Ming [Mingxuan Gao], my producer. I had been feeling undervalued and underestimated, which are feelings that many independent artists are familiar with. So I decided to write a song that begs the universe to take a chance on me.”
There’s honesty and vulnerability in good measure on Arora’s new songs, but that’s part of the artist’s charm on his previous releases as well, whether he’s earnest or playful in tone, on songs like “Rare,” “I Don’t Wanna Know” and “Expensive On Me.” The new EP’s first single, “Good Things” was intended to “radiate hope” and it might just be Arora’s songwriting superpower, considering he had a breakout moment with “Feel Good Song” in 2016. He says “Good Things” also came at a time when he was lacking optimism. “So in some ways, the track manufactures that hopefulness that I was missing,” Arora adds.
We go on a slight detour at this time, talking about how songs like “Good Things” when I ask Arora about what people may want out of music at a time when it’s increasingly being consumed via short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. “It’s just an undeniable part of the music industry now,” he says. The artist says there are pros and cons because the platform for discovery is there but then it comes with pressures that Arora says can be damaging to mental health. He adds, “I often find myself obsessing over overviews and numbers, which really shouldn’t matter, but you start to let popularity dictate how you should feel about your work. Also, not all musicians are innate content creators. The pressure to constantly push and promote your music on TikTok, and come up with new ideas for content every day, is a new requirement in this industry. It’s now become another hat that an independent musician has to wear. We have enough on our plate!”
Nevertheless, Arora is forging forward and says he has two more songs coming out from the EP and they’ve been coming out in “reverse chronological order” of the tracklist. “Good Things” is the EP’s closing track, with “Pretty Please” being the penultimate track in the sequence. “The one coming out after that is a song called ‘Running,’ and I’m experimenting with an indie-pop sound on that one which is very different from anything I’ve released before. It’s one of my favorites,” he says. Then, there’s a “really fun and personal collaboration” song that will release last, with the full EP out in November.
Whether it’s singles or EPs, Arora has also been performing across the U.S., U.K. and Canada. India remains a priority as well for the New Delhi-born artist. “It’s always been on my list to do a show in my home city, so getting to play in Delhi would be a dream come true. I’m just waiting for the right time and opportunity to be able to do that in the way that I want,” he says.
It makes even more sense for a homecoming gig, considering the way desi diaspora music has been accepted around the U.S. and in India. But within that, he says there are expectations from South Asian artists to sing in Hindi or Urdu or have overt South Asian influences in their music. “I just wish there was more of an open mind regarding the vast variety of genres in the community. But there is so much sonic diversity within the desi community of artists, and I hope people see that,” Arora adds.
