The ballads are few and far between on Maggie Rogers’ brilliantly written third record, which delivers one singalong belter after another. Don’t Forget Me doesn’t reinvent the singer-songwriter wheel, but what a fabulous wheel this particular album is.
The origin story of Maryland singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers’ career is the stuff of pop legend these days. Rogers was 22 when she took a music production masterclass at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, which involved the no doubt intimidating task of playing an original song to one of the most famous producers in the world, Pharrell Williams. The song, Alaska, floored Williams, who’s first response was “I have zero, zero notes for that.” The resulting clip went viral (a remarkable watch still available on YouTube), and the rest is history.
History, because Williams really had discovered a US megastar in that small New York recording studio. Just four years later, Rogers would be at the Grammys. This year, that shy music student has a 30-date US stadium tour in her diary, followed by a tour of Europe in support of a little-known British band by the name of Coldplay. Whilst Alaska remains one of her biggest hits, Rogers’ music these days sounds much removed from the crowd pleasing yet safe pop confections of her 2019 debut, Heard It In a Past Life. Don’t Forget Me feels like the completion of the gradual artistic progression that Rogers launched on that fateful day back in 2016, developing from cautious experimentalism to self-assured pop and country hits. That’s not to say Don’t Forget Me tries anything especially distinctive or unusual, but the bulletproof vocal performances and a string of anthemic choruses don’t put a foot wrong.
Spacey, mature opener It Was Coming All Along is an effective tone-setter, but it’s the moody follow up where the instant classics begin: Drunk is a thrilling ride with bluesy rock guitars and a relentless chorus that recalls Fleetwood Mac at their most dynamic. Best of all is the extraordinary vocal performance, which rattles along with so much pent-up rage there are moments when Rogers’ sounds on the verge of losing control completely. And yet, like a cowboy clinging onto to a raging bull’s leash, she just about lands every adventurous adlib, and the result is one of the most compelling pop-rock recordings of the year so far.
Drunk is just the beginning of Don’t Forget Me’s delights. Deeply lovely So Sick of Dreaming is graced with sparkling layered guitars and a stunningly harmonised chorus that paints Rogers’ lovesickness with a beautiful elongated sigh of a melody. The spoken recount of a failed first date during the bridge may strike some as corny, but the payoff is perfectly executed final chorus that epitomises Rogers’ general fatigue whilst hinting at an underlying hope. The Kill maintains that appealing concoction of pain with a dash of optimism, the latter provided by an winning mellotron hook and galloping groove. It’s a straightforward and arguably unambitious track – a smattering of horns could have been a more daring creative decision to take The Kill even further from bland country music charts fodder – but it’s hard to knock the sheer quality of Rogers’ songcraft.
There are only two ballads in the ten tracks – I Still Do and All the Same – both of which are competently written and necessary moments of quiet reflection, but it’s the stadium-ready up-tempo numbers that will have fans returning to Don’t Forget Me over and over again. Earwormy On & On & On, for instance, pairs a wobbling synth bass with snappy funk drums, a hark back to noughties which might have outdated had Rogers’ hooks not been so punchy. Most of Don’t Forget Me’s choruses seem tailormade for road trip singalongs, particularly the anthemic Never Going Home, as well as the poignant lead single and title track, which closes the album with a pained demand to be remembered. If she’s in any way trying to send a message to listeners at the end of her album, Rogers need not worry – no listener is forgetting this excellent record in a hurry.