Surrender
Like most people on this embattled earth, Maggie Rogers spent the better part of 2020 in isolation—in her case, in Maine, where *Surrender* took shape. “I started this record there,” she tells Apple Music. “And I was really drawn to big drums and distorted guitar, because I missed music that made me feel something physically. I missed the physicality of being at a festival”: a big feeling, she says—a little overwhelming, a little cold, a little drunk. The noise was a symbol of chaos, but also of liberation. “Like, in all the craziness in the world, being able to play with something like that,” she says, “it was as if it could make my body let go of the tension I was feeling.” So think of the album’s title as a possibility, or even a goal: that even at her most commanding—the electro-pop of “Shatter,” the country swagger of “Begging for Rain” and barroom folk of “I’ve Got a Friend”—Rogers can explore what it means to relinquish control without sacrificing the polish and muscle that makes her music pop. “When we’re cheek to cheek, I feel it in my teeth,” she sings on “Want Want”: an arthouse on paper, a blockbuster in sound. When Rogers started the album, she was so burned out from touring she could barely talk. “I hadn’t been to a grocery store in four years,” she says. “I was ready to bite. And this record is the bite. But when I listen back, there’s so much joy. I think that’s the thing that surprised me more than anything—that *that* was the place I escaped to, and it was the thing that became the way I survived it, or the way I worked through it. This idea of joy as a form of rebellion, as something that can be radical and contagious and connective and angry.” “Are you ready to start?” she sings on “Anywhere With You.” And then she repeats herself, a little louder each time.
The “Alaska” star’s second album, which shares its title with her Harvard Divinity School thesis, asks big questions about life through confident pop anthems.
On her second album, the singer-songwriter ratchets things up several notches to find her most powerful form yet
Maggie Rogers attempts to find synergy between competing understated folk and maximalist electropop impulses on Surrender
Rogers followed up a Grammy win by enrolling in university, but this album should mean she doesn’t have to apply for any grad jobs
And there is perhaps no secular artist more aware of this synergy than Maggie Rogers.
Faced with the numbness and antipathy of modern life, Maggie Rogers fights back with feeling on second album 'Surrender'
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Even with songs that are brash, chunky and loud, Maggie Rogers gives over to pared back singer-songwriter fare that reigns it all in.
It is only fitting that Maggie Rogers recently graduated from Harvard Divinity School, as her sophomore release has proven her the indisputable patron saint of millennial pop.
While doing my degree, I did a lot of nothing, just the classic sleeping through early classes and pretending Mondays didn’t exist. What did Maggie Rogers
Urgent, forthright and rocking out, the American’s second studio album is a compelling change of direction
Maggie Rogers knows how to construct a big pop tune – perhaps too well. Surrender often feels like a simulacrum of a great pop record
Maggie Rogers' sophomore LP 'Surrender' heads in an alt-pop/rock direction and tackles ambition in all its glorious ability to make or break ourselves.
Surrender by Maggie Rogers review by Sam Franzini. The songwriter's latest full-length is available on July 29th via Debay Sounds, Capitol Records, and DSPs
Beyoncé's latest is empowering and exhausting, King Princess delivers pop gold, and Maggie Rogers supplies ravenous, hollering songs
A confident second offering, but Rogers' radio-friendly songs lack emotional heft
Maggie Rogers broke through a sea of rock and metal with her intimate and personal second album. New music review by Tom Carr