Aditya Datta, a current freshman at Penn State who graduated from North Penn high school in 2020, is there for economics. He founded the Investment club, partook in Model United Nations, and ran Track & Field during his tenure at the high school. None of that is special, but what is, however, is his recently released debut album on Spotify and Apple Music, entitled Entries.

“Entries is a ‘concept album’, which tells a story of my first relationship and mainly focuses on the breakup–and this all happened very organically. When I first started songwriting, it was to cope with a lot of the strong emotions I felt after breaking up. So all the songs I wrote in that six to ten-week period all kind of match the same story,” Datta explained.

But what might seem odd to you is the fact that Datta never participated in anything related to music/songwriting as a North Penn student.

“Four years ago, I did not sing ever, and I definitely didn’t sing in front of other people. And so over the past few years, though, I had little moments where I just saw myself being better at music just naturally. Whether that was just freestyling in the Pennfield locker room with the rest of the guys or when I was just listening to music and I would just come up with different melodies over the tracks. I realized that this is something that I love. And so I just kept working on it,” Datta said.

“Entries really came into fruition during the dying days of this past summer. And I really wrote all the songs during my first semester at Penn State, but my journey with music and the friends I’ve made and the knowledge I’ve gained really started at North Penn,” Datta said.

When listening to the album, which includes a total of five songs, one might struggle to find the genre of it. Datta attributes that fact to his outlandish music taste–which spreads from the 60s to current day.

“I have a really varied music taste and that’s something I tried to reflect with Entries. I’d say from my music and singing style, there is a lot of diversity and you can hear a bunch of my different influences,” Datta explained.

Datta’s main inspiration for songwriting comes from two very different sources.

“Listening to Abbey Road by the Beatles, listening to Good Kid, MAAD City by Kendrick Lamar, I take the things that I enjoyed the most about those two very different albums. And Entries kind of came as a fusion of the two. If you listen to the first track, it starts off sounding like a Beatles song, and then it moves into like this hip hop, pop fusion,” Datta said.

As Datta states, Entries is a storytelling album about how Datta’s failed relationship occurred and how he coped with it. His goal in doing that was to see if other people would resonate with those same struggles.

“Everything should follow a logical order. The first track gives you the context of the whole story. The first verse tells you what you should be focusing on as a listener. Then it takes you right into the thick of things and that places you at the end of the story when I’ve fully moved on,” Datta said.

“Then the final verse of the first track looks back at the relationship that just occurred, and it signals to the reader that a bit of reflection is about to happen ( ‘on the walk back down Curtain Road, my high comes back to low and like seasoning seasons, the feelings come and go’). And that leads perfectly into the second song of the album, Susie’s Song, which is when I’m at the peak of getting out of a relationship. That’s when I started to feel like I was okay,” Datta said.

After that track follows Sometimes. The listener then is exposed to the point where Datta is once again reflective on all of the emotions and feelings felt from the very first relationship mentioned in the first track of the album. Then comes Chaser, a tale of both a “woozy” and irresponsible vibe is given throughout the song as Datta is trying to get the past relationship off his mind brought up again from the song prior.

“Finally wrapping up the whole project is Summer Breezes, it’s much more lightweight to finish it all off. That is the final few moments when I’m with new people, and yet I still kind of hang on to that last person. And that’s where I finished off the project, where I’m still moving on yet the memory of the person I was with is still on my mind,” Datta explained.

While Datta was the songwriter and the voice of each song, he received help from others to produce it and bring the album to life.

“There were three people who turned my ideas into fully produced songs. The first one is my friend, Danny Johnson, who I met in high school and with whom I’ve been collaborating for many years. What I would do is, I’d create the song and then I would send it to Danny. We would hop on a Zoom call and then he would create the beat around it. We’d start experimenting with different layers of instrumentation around it. And we would both just kind of pitch in ideas,” Datta explained.

“And then the two producers there, Joey Manago and Fred Keller, would help us with mixing and mastering the project and then playing the electric guitar if necessary. So they were also really, really helpful in giving the whole project a really cohesive and professional sound,” Datta said.

Knowing that this is his debut project and that not many people know him yet, he is quite humble in his approach and his goals.

“Paul McCartney has a quote that I really love. It says, ‘in the end, I want to make music that I love and that other people can love’. And that’s really what I’ve set out to do. I want to make really great songs that can make people feel better about themselves and the lives they live. I also want to feel better about myself and the life that I live. That’s really the end goal to just continue growing as an artist and really make special music and something that might outlast me,” Datta said.

Releasing an album itself has been a big step in Datta’s life. It really showed him that with enough time and effort, he could really do anything he wanted.

“With a whopping 2,200 streams, uh, Entries has not changed my financial life,” Datta joked. “But it has shown me the power of music. While the stream counts have been modest, while I am not famous, there has been such an outpouring of support that I just never would’ve expected. Hundreds of people have messaged me, people, who I don’t even know about the project and how much it’s struck and how much it connected with them. And I think that really validated all of the work and effort I put into this thing.”