“Love is not the final straw / But it’s always a reason to risk it all,” indie darling turned pop superstar, Maggie Rogers, sings on her latest album, Don’t Forget Me. For anyone who has been following her, from the shared footage of Pharrell wowed by her college electronic-influenced song, “<a href=”https://northerntransmissions.com/maggie-rogers-shares-so-sick-of-dreaming/”>Alaska</a>,” to getting airplay throughout the country, to filling large venues throughout the country, and seen her down to earth interviews and own the camera in fashionable photos and music videos (including a cameo by David Byrne), she might be taking you along (like me), into the pop world with understandable reluctance but willing intrigue at her refreshing honesty and remarkable talent, that rivals some of the greats in the pop music world.

“Don’t Forget Me,” the title track, her favorite ever written, which closes the album, she says is about how one of the greatest honors in life is to be remembered, even after we’re gone. And the work that she puts into her career, and the vulnerability that she puts into her well-crafted songs, shows somebody who is aware that our time on this planet is limited and precious. “If now was then, I would get out of my head / I would touch your chest, I would break the bed.” Many of her songs are about love and lovers, past and present, and she captures the thrill of catching a love interest’s eyes across the room, or deciding with bravery and authenticity that it’s time to move on.

They are wonderfully produced songs, as a whole, but there are a few tracks like “I Still Do” and “All The Same,” with just Maggie stripped down with piano and guitar, that give a little peek behind the curtain, and show that she is above all a career songwriter, interested in the simple but profound power of words and melody to convey relatable and intelligent songs that would demand replays and stand the test of time. She still knows how to move the body, like she moves the heart, nonetheless, with danceable numbers, like “On & On & On.” “And it goes on and on, when you hear this song.” Her songs are made for big arenas and rapt audiences, and she is known to put on quite a show.

There are some country elements to her songwriting on this album, but the thing that I love about Maggie is that she is never genre-aware, but seems to just write from the heart, and let the songs speak for themselves. She is one of the more authentic artists out there right now, equally at home in the indie and pop worlds, and said in interviews for this album that she feels like she has let her guard down more than ever in this new album of songs, and shared what’s really going on in her heart and mind.

“Until one day, you wake up and you realize / that what you see is what you know / and still you wish for one more kiss / a moment’s bliss from a lover you’ve always known / Ooh, so it goes.” In a world that is perhaps becoming more and more isolated, Maggie urges her listeners, many in their young adulthood like herself, to get out there and find love. “Maybe there’s a stranger standing, holding out for love / just waiting on the next street / just for me.” She takes a chance on desire in her latest album, and whets her listeners’ appetite to “feel love / right down to my toes.” It doesn’t have some of the same hit power as older records from her direction, but every song is solid, and the album is an impressive showing.

Order Don’t Forget About Me by Maggie Rogers HERE