8.0

GENRE: Pop/Pop-Rock
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2022

2022 has been a great year for Maggie Rogers: she’s just gotten her master’s degree, secured a spot in Former President Barack Obama’s Summer Playlist, and, most important to some, attended the Met Gala. Rogers is fresh out of Harvard, an incredible feature considering she had been simultaneously recording her second studio album, Surrender. Her achievements this year can be said to be a byproduct of surviving the challenging times of the pandemic: Rogers credits her need to feel something during quarantine as the engine for creating her new album. And that is why Surrender, with all its intensity and exposure, hits close to home. In our isolation, we all shared the same cravings for life outdoors, concerts, and live music.

Motivated by such moments and missing the physicality of music, the singer sought to create a vibrating, tangible sound—like the one you hear and feel at festivals. Knowing exactly what kind of sound she had in mind, Rogers recruited Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes) to co-produce the record with her. Sonically, Surrender is an incendiary sigh of relief. Loud drums, distorted guitars, and heavy synth bass are architecturally put together so the singer can let out some burdensome words. Opening track “Overdrive” sets the tone for such deliverances. “My love, would you walk for hours just to talk?” Rogers sings in the slow-paced, synth-layered song that evolves into a bridge worthy of British alternative-rock bands.

With poetical liberty comes a price few are willing to pay: tearing down your thick walls and showing your vulnerability. But Rogers does pay it, and “That’s Where I Am” unveils her insecurities through its verses and joyful melody. The song was released as the first single off the album, setting the tone for Rogers’ new era: acoustic drums, heady metal cymbals, and atmospheric electronic elements. The singer unpockets yet another surprise and delivers an Alanis Morrissette type of bridge, carried by a compelling acoustic guitar. “It all works out in the end,” she sings reassuringly. If the intention was to create the perfect song for the ending credits of a movie, it could be said she succeeded.

“Want Want,” bluntly described by the singer as a “song about sex,” stays in the same sound palette of the previous track. The song conveys a message of empowerment through a crescendo melody and a cathartic hook that sticks, which is perhaps the most euphoric moment on the album. The specificity of the song is a little clunky but is quickly balanced out by some level of relatability (“Everybody's always known/But I didn't want to admit/That when we're cheek to cheek/I feel it in my teeth, and it's too good to resist”). At this point, it’s noticeable how Rogers sounds more confident than she did on her debut album, Heard It in a Past Life. She has fully embraced the confessional character of an artist who is not inclined to take herself too seriously. Her vocals are let loose, too. Some of the notes are sustained a little longer, with words extended through her ear-pleasing vibrato.

Surrender is full of these moments. It feels like a woven blanket, threaded with glimpses of secrecy and disclosure. Throughout the record, the subject matter remains unchanged: all the words have been boiling inside her, and the inevitable eruption has finally begun. On “Anywhere With You,” Rogers’ approach is somehow franker than before, as she teases, “Roll the windows down, kill thе radio/I'd rather hear the wind than hear that song I'm supposed to know/By some fucking bro.” But love has many sides, and though annoyance is one of them, so is the fear of risking it all. She sings, “I wanna lose my mind in a hotel room with you, anywhere would do,” understanding that real life is not always about buoyancy.

The album cover is a close-up photo of Roger’s face, focusing mainly on her eyes—we can’t see her mouth—metaphorically rendering a portal into her consciousness. The artwork is indicative of the intensity of what’s inside and how personal the songs might be. But intensity is a mixed blessing, and in some ways, Surrender is cursed by an insistent devotion to truth. Such commitment to realistic takes carries its flaws: the out-of-breath vocal performance in the chorus of “Shatter” doesn’t do the trick it was supposed to; though it was probably intentional, some re-working would’ve been appreciated. You know, some ideas just don’t work.

Things become more subdued in the second half of the record. “Begging For Rain” offers a moment to catch our breath and relax, and we sip at it like a lukewarm cup of tea. The stripped-down “I’ve Got a Friend” is one of those moments of specificity and is rapidly absorbed by the radio-friendly “Honey” that comes right after. If “That’s Where I Am” is a good song for the credits at the end of a movie, “Honey” would be the perfect opening number. The eleventh track, “Symphony,” could have easily taken the number two spot in the track list, but it fits perfectly here; “take a breath,” Rogers sings right before a series of harmonizations that give space to over one minute and a half of instrumentation. The damage is done, and it’s now time for her to take a sit and heal. She offers you peace and reflection on the closing “Different Kind of World,” realizing that while she can’t control most things, she can choose what to suffer for.

On Surrender, Maggie Rogers turns chaos into clarity. There are moments when her voice is throbbing, raw with emotion. Then there are parts in which there is only tenderness, with a sense of closure often neglected in pop music. The album doesn’t add any exploration of sounds to the singer’s discography, but her ideas have evolved, matured, and become clearer. To create the project, Rogers retreated to her family’s house in Maine during the pandemic and started writing music that questions life, examining her own life and the world around her. The result is a collection of daring songs and a record that is paradoxically insecure and self-assured, proving how powerful it can be to speak up, even if your voice cracks.

Listen to Surrender: