Maggie Rogers - Don't Forget Me (2024) [Hi-Res]

Since her 2016 breakthrough single "Alaska," Maggie Rogers has continued to hone her craft as both a singer and a relater of the hazards of love. On her sparkling third full-length, Don't Forget Me—recorded with engineers John Rooney, Carl Bespolka and Konrad Snyder at New York City's storied Electric Lady Studios—Rogers keeps the production values real, resisting efforts to glam up her sound or develop into a bigger pop presence. She and her talented collaborator Ian Fitchuk are a group of two here: Rogers on vocals and Fitchuk playing most of the instruments; it's a situation that lends itself to restraint. Nothing in this collection gets too big or overproduced to the point where her heady lyrics and strong melodies disappear in layers of blinding fluff. The sonic decisions are all exactly right in "All The Same," her voice close-miked and the strings on an acoustic guitar clear and detailed.

Rogers and Fitchuk are resourceful songwriters and her voice is strong and nimble enough to handle any arrangement. In the album's strongest melody, "So Sick of Dreaming," she vividly stretches the title lyric into an irresistible hook. Later in the song, a voice recording of a woman (presumably, Rogers) being stood up at the last minute by "a loser" who suddenly has Knicks tickets ends on a triumphant note, "And by the way, the Knicks lost." Rogers adds another arresting rise-and-fall catch to her voice in the verses of another masterful performance, "If Now Was Then." Adding to the long musical history of regretful lost love laments set in the streets in Gotham, a descending melody carries Rogers listing what she can't change, "But if now was then/ I would get out of my head/ I would touch your chest I would/ Break the bed I would/ Say the things that I/ Never said … " In "Never Going Home" she knows that her actions have consequences ("I can't behave, but I don't want to be alone no/ You kept me waiting, now I'm never ever going home") and shows that underneath reason still lies irrational desire in "Drunk": "And I see stars that never ever ever looked this bright to me/ Feeling on your skin never felt this right to me." Assured and beautifully crafted pop music documenting love's struggle. © Robert Baird/Qobuz