Maggie Rogers has done it again. She’s made another no-skip album — from five-song EPs to divinity-school dissertations and now to an album that’s as comfortable and loved as worn-in jeans.
In “Don’t Forget Me,” Rogers has pulled together the two threads that her music wants to follow: the fun folk-ish music of the 21st-century, and loud, alternative indie pop that you feel in your teeth. Unlike her previous two long plays, “Heard it in a Past Life” and “Surrender,” which she wrote and recorded for months, Rogers wrote and recorded the songs for her third album, “Don’t Forget Me,” chronologically in just five days. As for the elemental vibe of the album, where her first LP is air and her second is fire, “Don’t Forget Me” is earth, which comes across to listeners in 10 grounded tracks.
Rogers has always written about her experience of love as a full-bodied emotion, and fans have watched Rogers for the past seven years, as her songwriting has evolved alongside drastic changes to her hair. As she has grown as an artist and person, in her music she reminisces about and critiques her experience of love more than letting the feeling consume her. From her first album, the song “Light On” talks about longing for the comforts of an ex-flame — “If you keep reaching out / Then I’ll keep coming back.” Three years later with “Shatter,” Rogers confesses the recklessness of love: “I don’t really care if it nearly kills me / I’d do anything just to feel with you.” Now, as she nears 30, Rogers reflects on a past relationship in a way that is impossible at a young age; in “I Still Do,” the song she calls her saddest to date, she sings, “Love is not the final straw / But it’s always a reason to risk it all / At least the way that I loved you.”
Between the two of us, Rogers has fans on both sides of the country and, as of right now, both sides of the Atlantic. Last August, at the Hollywood Bowl, Rogers told fans she’d be performing three new, never-been-heard-before songs from her upcoming album. Immediately after hearing “The Kill,” with a completely silent audience, rapt at her every word and hip swing, I knew that it would be the first song I looked for on album three. Unsurprisingly, the mastered version of “The Kill” did not disappoint. This song is the most fun depiction of the highs and lows of falling for someone who doesn’t show up in the way you want them to, and it is unbelievably addictive — there’s some out-of-body compulsion that makes us hit “repeat” again and again. In a surprising plot twist, Rogers switches the pronouns in the chorus of the song, signaling to listeners that she is just as much to blame for the failed relationship. Another album highlight is “If Now Was Then,” which beautifully captures the futility of wanting to change your past behavior, but also the release that such a self-admission can provide.
That said, for the astute Rogers fans like us, you might have noticed that both of our favorites are contained within the first half of the album. We found that “Don’t Forget Me,” was a little top-heavy and that the latter half of the album was a bit repetitive. Not to say there aren’t some gems in there, but they didn’t carry as much original, emotional weight.
This past Saturday, to celebrate her album’s release, Rogers sold tickets to her upcoming stadium shows at a box office and was also selling tickets for a general admission show that night. After waiting on the sidewalk since 7:30 a.m. in the morning, at 1:30 p.m., I finally got my $25 ticket for that night’s show at Irving Plaza, feeling very grateful that I braved the sidewalk as early as I did because tickets sold out just half an hour later while lines were still wrapped around multiple city blocks.
The concert was intimate in size, but also in company. The 1,100-person venue was filled with mega fans who devoted themselves to a Saturday spent on concrete, which gave Rogers the freedom to perform deeper cuts instead of her “biggest” hits like “Alaska,” the song that went viral and launched her to fame in 2016. Rogers didn’t even plan a setlist — aside from playing the entirety of her new album, she chose audience members to call out the songs they wanted to hear.
In the same way that Rogers’ lyrics speak to us as her audience, her own music has done the same for her, as “Don’t Forget Me” the album has allowed her to “sew [her] shadow back on.” Just like a favorite pair of jeans, “Don’t Forget Me” is something we’ll put on when we want to feel like ourselves.
