Grammy Award-nominated songwriter/producer/performer Maggie Rogers has released her new album on April 12th. “Don’t Forget Me” is an album fans have been looking forward to hearing. With the release of this album, Rogers described the goal of the album was to “Sound Like a Sunday afternoon” and is undoubtedly hitting that goal. It does provide listeners the beautiful vocals and relaxing vibes they are aiming for. The slower paced tracks make them stand out from the crowd. The Album was written over five days, which is an incredible achievement, two songs a day. Three days in December 2022 and January 2023 and was written in chronological order.
One of the songs that stood out is Don’t Forget me which consists of an incredible instrumental and has great vocal moments. The song is the final track of the album, and by good choice the single track. This song isn’t new to fans though, initially debuting in 2023 on Rogers sold-out ‘Summer of 23’ North American tour. This alongside tracks “The Kill” which is more of an upbeat and catchy song which just screams its summer to us and “So Sick Of Dreaming” which comes just before “The Kill” in the album as track number 3 and has a fun instrumentals and a very memorable chorus
The mix of vocals and instrumentals is essential indie music, and Maggie Roger has covered this role perfectly, with “It was coming all along” as the opener to the album. It is a heavier track with more upbeat tempo, definitely capturing that vibe of a Sunday afternoon where you are enjoying the short time of freedom before the week restarts. The song “Drunk” is another strong track, showcasing the faster style vocals Rogers is great at achieving whilst still keeping the relaxing vibe and not being overwhelming fast. Following up, after “So Sick Of Dreaming” and “The Kill” is track 5, “If Now Was Then,” which provides listens with a Rogers stunning vocals, a beautiful song on reflection of past memories.
“I Still Do” starts with a lovely piano, providing a more ballad style song. This is a nice change of pace to the guitar and more radio-catchy tracks previously.
As fans continue listening to the album, the beat is picked up on “On & On & On” which is a repetitive song as the title pre-warns, this song’s instrumentals bring a new emotion into the album, more of a moving on feel to it.
Just as Rogers had told fans, this album was written in chronological order and the songs reflect that as “Never Going Home” sticks to the moving-on emotions. In this her lyrics “You kept me waiting, now I’m never going home” describes the loss of a love you didn’t want to lose but the upbeat instrumentals give it that edge of ‘This is going to be ok.’ After a few slightly faster and more energetic songs we are brought to “All the same” another ballad-style song. This is definitely the realisation of everything that’s happened. The moment you take it all in and it hits you what happened. It perfectly captures the emotions. The stunning vocals accompany a guitar and piano instrumental in this track and this song really feels the most raw in the whole album.
Overall, this album is perfect to play when you want something soft and comforting to listen to. It would couple up great when studying or working and you want something to listen to alongside you, alternatively we can definitely see ourselves plugging in the headphones and blasting these songs when you have those moments you just want to immerse yourself in your feelings.