Michael Rogers

Maggie Rogers has had an extraordinarily fast rise to fame in the music industry, in no small part due to her viral video of Pharrell Williams enjoying her song “Alaska”. She took this opportunity and ran with it, releasing an EP, as well as her debut album Heard it in a Past Life. This unexpected fame is used as a major theme throughout the album, which makes for some very strong lyrics that elevate the album over her contemporaries like Betty Who. The album starts off very strong with “Give a Little” and “Overnight”, which is my personal favorite. These two are extremely catchy bops that dare you not to sing along. It slows down a tad with “The Knife”, and the aforementioned “Alaska”. The track that started her career is worth all of the praise that it gets. It’s a light and poppy tune along the lines of the very best of Sylvan Esso with a bit of old school R&B and this influence is present throughout the album in tracks like “Say It”. “Past Life” is a dreamy piano ballad that showcases Rogers’ impressive vocal chops. The album does get a little long in the tooth by the time you get to the last four tracks as they are all too similar sounding for their own good. The album as a whole would benefit greatly from being tightened up by cutting a few of these tracks. Overall the album is definitely worth a listen and I am interested to see where Maggie goes next and will be following her in the future.