Just about everybody and their mother has seen the video of Maggie Rogers sitting down with Pharrell Williams and listening to her song “Alaska”. Rogers was a college music student at the time, Pharrell was invited to the class to critique and offer feedback, and after listening to the track he simply says “Wow” and provides a glowing summary about the uniqueness of her style and opines about the journey of creative artistry. “I have zero notes” is a quote that echoed across the internet that summer– it was a defining pont of Rogers journey and sent her into the pop culture stratosphere.
Her debut album Heard It In A Past Life is unique in many of the same respects, but coming three years after her encounter with Pharrell (and following a period of time in pop music when everyone attempted to sound like Maggie Rogers) sounds a bit more familiar now than it did in 2016. That’s a good thing however because the album is a wonderful landscape of electropop colors and stacked vocal harmonies which gives it a real widescreen appeal that feels larger than the sum of its consummate parts. I never fail to get goosebumps whenever I hear “Fallingwater” or “Light On” for the exact reason Pharrell mentioned on that fateful day– Rogers is a singular force, an artist who is unafraid to cut her own path, seeing melodies around corners in a way that seems almost effortless when she executes them.
Standout Songs: “Fallingwater”, “Light On”, “Alaska”, “Say It”
