Arden Alexa Built a Universe in Three Years. This Is What’s Inside It.

This album is basically a diary, each song a journal entry describing a moment in my life. I was never consciously making an album, I was writing songs as a way to express myself and process experiences I’d had. It wasn’t until I wrote the title track that I realized I had been making an album. As soon as I wrote “HOPE YOU’RE WATCHING”, I knew that it was the final puzzle piece, that this song captured the feeling of why I had written this collection of songs. From there, the whole project fell into place and I was able to see clearly how these songs fit together.

I envision this album taking place on a glittering stage of a theater, with red velvet seats, gold curtains, and shining lights. I can picture shimmering, grand dresses for some of the songs, and simple, elegant ones for others. It’s fancy and elaborate, it’s classy and beautiful, but most importantly, it’s safe. The universe surrounding this album, and everything I make, is a safe space for people to explore their passions and have fun and feel everything deeply. It’s a place that listeners can escape to when they need fun, drama, or company during a time of sadness. Ultimately, all I want is to create a community where listeners can connect and feel unified by the music, even if they come from different backgrounds or speak different languages or have different interests.

To be honest, it’s not conscious at all. When I was in the studio with Simon and Luke, we were focusing on sounds that made us excited and felt true to the songs. While we kept some of my main influences in mind, we were ultimately trying to create authentic songs that told the stories and felt like me. In listening to the completed project now, I definitely hear those influences coming through — after all, they have all played a part in making me the artist I am today.

My favorite thing about creating music is knowing that other people can connect with it, so getting such a positive response to “Crush!!!” has been truly so exciting. Everything about making this song was pure fun, from the writing all the way to the filming of the music video. I like to think that we were able to capture some of that fun and carefree joy in the elements of the song and that’s why it has resonated so much with listeners.

I absolutely adore Audrey Hepburn and have always looked up to her style, poise, and sense of self. She always talked about authenticity and being true to oneself, and that’s ultimately what I attempted to capture in this music video. Although on the surface the video is very silly and playful, the underlying message is that I’ve come to accept who I am — a crazy cat lady — even if others judge me for it. Ultimately, my cat Liza symbolizes all of the interests and passions I possess and how I’ve been able to overcome my self-consciousness surrounding them. I don’t care if people call me a crazy cat lady because I know that I am one, and proudly so.

I view songwriting for myself as a chance for me to explore my inner thoughts, to work through my feelings and discover what excites me. It’s a very introspective, personal process for me and often happens alone in my room. In contrast, songwriting for others is a chance to explore new genres and delve into the style of the other artist. Writing for and with others is something I’ve had to really learn and practice over the past few years, but it’s been so rewarding and fun to expand my songwriting outside myself and my familiar genres.

Every step of creating this album was vulnerable in some way, but perhaps the most vulnerable was writing and recording the title track. “HOPE YOU’RE WATCHING” is truly a song that came from my heart — a song that put into words exactly what I was feeling. Writing it was incredibly cathartic as it was everything I had been wanting to say aloud but never fully had the courage to. However, when it came to sharing the song with others — especially my parents and my producers — I was absolutely terrified. Terrified that they wouldn’t like this piece of my soul that I’d bared, that they wouldn’t connect with what I was feeling, or that they would think less of me for feeling this way. It was such a relief to share the song and hear that they did resonate with it, and the continued positive feedback since the release of the album has honestly healed the part of me that needed to write this song.

I hope they feel the honesty. I hope they get a sense of the truth, the messiness, the silliness, the heartbreak and the joy. I hope they feel that it’s real. Ultimately, that’s what I wanted to capture with this album — not any one particular emotion, but the chaos and beauty of life in all of its varying stages. I hope the album inspires listeners to hold onto their truths more tightly, and be authentically themselves, as loudly and dramatically as possible.

The beauty of creating songs is that there is no one way to produce them and I think the remixes really highlight that. Creating this remix EP was really just an opportunity to bring new life into the song and explore the different directions that it could take. I hope that it expands the audience of the song so that it appeals to not just fans of pop music, but also dance and electronic.

I’ve been back in the studio a lot recently and although I’m not sure what the next project will turn out to be, I can promise that I’ll continue to be authentic and create music from the heart.