Don't Forget Me

About

“There's something about this record that feels like I'm coming home,” Maggie Rogers tells Apple Music's Zane Lowe about her third full-length <i>Don't Forget Me</i>, which is the Maryland-born singer-songwriter's first project since completing her master's degree in religion and public life at Harvard Divinity School. Being away from the music busine, she say, allowed her time to think about her life as an artist while also diversifying her mind. “I was trying to put so much in music,” she say. “Now my life is a lot more balanced and a lot more full—and I'm not saying by any means I have it figured out.” <i>Don't Forget Me</i> finds Rogers still on a path toward “figuring it out,” marrying the kineticism that made her breakthrough single “Alaska” such a sensation eight years prior with bigger sonic structures and wiser lyric. Opener “It Was Coming All Along” thrums with plush synths and string, as well as a sampled phone call that brings Rogers' lyrics about “trying to be brave these days” to life. “The Kill” possesses a grandness that recalls a sunny drive on an open road, which makes its story of a doomed relationship hit even harder. That energy, together with a wiser perspective, enabled her to her explore stories from beyond her personal realm. Take “So Sick of Dreaming,” a sauntering, Nashville-tinged cut about the travails of twentysomething life punctuated by a frustrated monologue about being stood up for Knicks ticket. (“And by the way, the Knicks lost,” she dryly note.) It's based on “a story that a friend had told to me the night before about another friend of hers that was going through this thing,” she say. “I never would've thought it was material; I had only written songs about things that were so personal to me.” .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

Start your shelf to read the full take →