Producer’s Cut: Maggie Rogers

By Aki Sanjay

On March 24th, 2016, Maggie Rogers walked into a songwriting class at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. For her and her classmates, it was supposedly another day at college: they had prepared a song as homework, and were meant to present it as part of the day’s session. What they didn’t know was that Pharrell Williams – multiple-time GRAMMY award, AMA award, and Academy award winning producer – would be critiquing each piece. 

During the masterclass, recorded in a video that has since gone viral on Youtube, Rogers plays an early draft of ‘Alaska’, the song that would soon after propel her to fame. Williams, who had offered advice to every student thus far in the masterclass, immediately goes quiet; his eyes widen, his mouth opens, and he looks over at her, somewhere between amazed and befuddled. Eventually, he shifts: “I have zero, zero, zero notes for that,” he says. “I’ve never heard anyone like you before, and I’ve never heard anyone that sounds like that.”

Even to untrained ears, ‘Alaska’ is immediately striking. The song is expertly layered, featuring an elastic beat, syncopated clicks, and a low sampled voice – all before the melody is even introduced. It features sounds that Rogers recorded during a hiking trip to the namesake state, surrounding Rogers’ voice with a careful delicacy.  As she sings, the listener can imagine the “westward water,” amplified in every pulse of the tune, brought to life by the unique production technique that Rogers employs.

Growing up on a working farm in rural Maryland, Rogers began playing the harp at seven, and applied to NYU as a folk musician. Her foray into pop music was admittedly unexpected: in her last year, Rogers took a course taught by Questlove and watched the  ‘Thriller’ video for the first time – “it was awesome,” she told Vogue a few months later. The class marked Rogers’ shift into pop production, and she began to incorporate elements of popular production into her folk background, building upon her established creative process. The newness she brought to pop music was an unanticipated asset, allowing her to experience sounds and samples without bias. Rogers is rare: one of few musicians who is, without fail, truly unique.

Following the success of ‘Alaska’, Rogers released her breakthrough EP Now That The Light Is Fading in 2017, followed by her Capital Records debut album Heard It In A Past Life in 2019. She found immediate success, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and earning a Best New Artist nomination at the 62nd GRAMMY Awards. Through both releases, Rogers prioritised the world around her. “I’ve always looked to the natural world to find a sense of growing rhythm,” she said in an interview with Atmos. “Whenever I feel a little bit out of step, if I can go for a walk and tune into the world around me [...] it immediately puts me in a place of reverence and gratitude in that perfect, small feeling.” 

This reliance on nature is evident in Rogers’ work, which includes songs such as ‘Fallingwater’, ‘Retrograde’, and ‘Light On’. It also offers a fundamental anchor to her production, which is consistently grounded and intimate. Vulnerability is core to Rogers’ style, reflected sonically in her production choices: sparse arrangements, her voice sitting close in the mix, and a restrained use of reverb and echo that keeps her sound tightly knit together. Even at its most expansive – think of the outro of ‘Light On’ - her music does not overwhelm. It lets space and silence carry weight, like an old friend sitting by your side.

Rogers’ most recent album, Don’t Forget Me, was released in 2024. It is the epitome of freedom: her love for music bleeds through every track, bringing a sense of levity and hope to each song. After its release, Rogers embarked on an international tour – including her first-ever arena performance – alongside Amber Bain of The Japanese House. She has also remained an eager activist and producer, having recently performed at protests at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Heart remains core: “I used to come to the Kennedy Center when I was a kid to see music that opened my world to what it meant to create and feel,” she said to amassed crowds. “More than anything these days I feel scared, and I feel afraid and when I feel that way I make music.”