Surrender.
| Maggie Rogers
Surrender.
Surrender is the second studio album by American pop singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers. It was released on July 29, 2022, through Debay Sounds and Capitol Records. It follows the release of her 2019 debut studio album, Heard It in a Past Life. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
The “Alaska” star’s second album, which shares its title with her Harvard Divinity School thesis, asks big questions about life through confident pop anthems.
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Rolling Stone
Maggie Rogers Finds a New Freedom On ‘Surrender’.
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Insider
Nearly every song on "Surrender" plays well on its own, but still lends itself to a live performance. I can envision a crowd collectively crying to "Begging for Rain" or screaming along to "Honey." I'm willing to bet that "Anywhere With You" will become a mainstay on every set list Rogers ever makes going forward. With "Surrender," Rogers made something that will fucking last.
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NME
On her second album, the singer-songwriter ratchets things up several notches to find her most powerful form yet.
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Spin
While Surrender is surely a vibrant and provocative studio album, the starkest difference should be seen when Maggie Rogers brings these new jams to the stage this fall. On her 2019 headlining tour, she proved herself as an impassioned performer, who only needed more worthy material. Now she’s got it, with songs designed to blow people away — all of it shepherded by an artist who now seems leagues more comfortable in her own skin.
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The Guardian
Throughout, she gives an exceptional vocal performance, urgent and belting, especially on Shatter, a turbo-charged, Haim-style ripper. Occasionally this can leave you longing for something less overblown, but this is Rogers 2.0: dancing sweatily in NYC karaoke bars and singing lines such as “sucking nicotine down my throat/ thinking of you giving head” (on new track Horses) and rocking out. Letting rip suits her.
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PopMatters
Maggie Rogers’ sophomore LP Surrender heads in an alt-pop/rock direction and tackles ambition in all its glorious ability to make or break ourselves.
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Paste Magazine
The singer radiates indie-pop cool while embracing uncertainty, serendipity and everything in between on sophomore LP.
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DIY Magazine
With accompanying music videos using resurfaced early-aughts symbology from cult films 10 Things I Hate About You and Lost In Translation, ‘Surrender’ proves Maggie can use motifs from the past to build worlds and stimulate memories while always looking forward.
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When the Horn Blows
Sonically dexterous and brimming with the frenetic energy of an artist coming into their own, "Surrender" represents another huge leap forward for Maggie Rogers following her critically acclaimed debut. Retaining her signature sound while experimenting with a new array of flavours, this record is a feast that reveals more and more of itself as you get more acquainted with it's many layers. Yet another triumph from one of pop music's most exciting outliers.
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WERS 88.9
It sounds as if she is genuinely having fun and doing something that she loves. And although it may seem straightforward, this theme of joy in Surrender feels revolutionary.
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Consequence
Surrender is the album that Maggie Rogers needs right now. It’s one that shows how much she’s grown as an artist, how much her voice is capable of, and how she can exercise her ability to transcend in only a few notes. This is an album born out of patience and care — two concepts that Maggie Rogers seems to know better than us all.
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Riff Magazine
Maggie Rogers’ ‘Surrender’ to the world is well worth it.
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Loud and Quiet
For all its good intentions – and the impressive set of well-written melodies that lay buried under a tangle of over-produced synths and jarring instrumentals – Surrender feels a bit too much like a pastiche of a good pop album, rather than a record that can be counted as one in its own right.
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Sacred Exile
Surrender is like a tastefully decorated, well-built, musical home. Unobtrusive but ever-present. Welcoming and full of little surprises. Confident and structurally sound.
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Financial Times
Impassioned vocals and intoxicating desires.
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Daily Bruin
With a deep understanding of her ever-evolving artistic journey, Rogers not only surrenders to love but to a new sonic wavelength that pays off in its innovative spirituality.
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The Post
Maggie Rogers’ "Surrender" is a pretty impressive comeback for the 28-year-old. Definitely more mature and experienced, the singer reveals what she’s gone through within the last three years, while also angling her music to reflect the current times we’re living in. While it isn’t a perfect album, it might be this fact that proves that no musician is perfect, but instead are just trying to create work that projects what they were feeling at that time.
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Riot Magazine
In Surrender, Maggie Rogers covers all bases. From nostalgic synth to bold electric guitar, big drum beats to tinkly piano, the album carries the listener through the eras, the highs and lows, and out the other side. Although three years have passed, Maggie Rogers has created something new and fresh that still perfectly emulates her signature sound – and it’s really bloody good.
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The Young Folks
Making a strong return from her studies at Harvard Divinity School, Maggie Rogers and the messages she conveys in Surrender are the perfect summer listen!
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Our Culture
It turns out that following her instincts has also led a record that’s all the more fervent and immediate, even if there’s something holding you back from giving yourself over to it completely.
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B-Sides
Maggie Rogers has written and performed a truly stunning collection on Surrender, and it feels easy to compare her to other innovators like Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, or even Charity Rose Thielen. But, Rogers still has her own distinct strong voice, paired with heart-wrenching and extraordinary lyrics that symbolize not just her coming-of-age, but that of everyone who ever struggled to grasp their own growing up.
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Picky Bastards
It took for me to see Maggie Rogers live for the first time to go from casual fan to ‘I must have this on vinyl’ and it does feel like much of Surrender is so instrumentally dense and interesting that it’s made for the stage. Occasionally, I lose that energy and it stops the album from being a must-listen for me but as a follow-up record from a brilliant performer it feels like a necessary step away from a Pop sound and headfirst into the Alternative space. Time will tell if it was the right call once I see these songs live.
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Stereoboard
It feels like a small point, but listening to this otherwise excellent album, the feeling that you could be listening to something more authentic and current never goes away.
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Evening Standard
Shatter has a rumbling electric guitar, retro synths and a breathless pace that should make it a future live favourite. There’s a lull of slower, more acoustic moments in the middle, but mostly she sounds three feet taller compared to her meeker earlier work.
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Thank Folk For That
A second studio album can be a tricky beast to navigate but in the case of Maggie Rogers, she seems to have found more of a personal voice here than her debut. Whether this is down to the multitude of co-producers on her first record muddying the waters or perhaps she has found her way, through the pandemic, by working out her voice and the space she wants to occupy here and now.
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The Line of Best Fit
While further proving that Rogers has yet to find a wholly satisfying balance between understated folk and maximalist electropop, it also shows her to be a multifaceted performer with a dynamism lacking amongst many of her peers.
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Gigwise
Expressive piano fills and warped bass on 'Want Want' allow Rogers' to truly free herself once more as she admits to falling back into old ways of desire. The celebratory track, co-produced with Kid Harpoon and Del Water Gap, is boosted even more when Rogers’ wailing voice is stacked over driving bass. Here, as on the majority of Surrender, Maggie Rogers sound unrestrained, wild and free.
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Glide Magazine
If her debut proved that Rogers could helm the kind of cross-generational, blockbuster breakout that artists like her dream of, Surrender proves that she can do it again, and even flex her versatility in the process. Rogers is rejuvenated, and full of ideas, and thankfully, it seems she is here to stay.
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The Indiependent
Closing with the Joni Mitchell-esque ‘Different Kind Of World’, Rogers speaks of listening to those around us, and it is in this open-mindedness that Surrender truly succeeds. Whilst areas of the album feature such strong production that Rogers vocals risk being drowned out by the surrounding noise, it is her honesty and sincerity that carries the album into greatness and solidifies it as one of the most confident and endearing albums of the year so far.
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Gigs and Tours
A complete contrast to what we were expecting from her, yet a release worth waiting for.
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Northern Transmissions
Even if some melodies are misplaced, some lyrics a bit corny, Surrender is packed with the confidence and love that peeked out from Heard It In A Past Life in small doses.
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The Weekly Coos
Maggie Rogers is coming headstrong and giving us more personable tracks that have more definition than some of the core singles of her last album. Instead of creating more livid-dance sequences, there is an essence to the dancing and singing. Definitely an improvement from her previous album, it’s something I’ll be returning to soon more frequently in the nighttime and other times, in my room during the rain.
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musicOMH
Embracing emotion wholeheartedly, her second record pulls you in even on first listen, and grabs you by the scruff of the neck.
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Clash Magazine
Even in comparison to her 2019 album, ‘Surrender’ paints a portrait of a fully-formed, confident artist. Maggie’s vocals throughout are breath-taking in their freedom as she seems to perform without restraint. Pushing herself further and taking from inspiration outside of the mould that some might put her in, the result is something so full of release. From the lyrical outpouring of questions and realisations, to the emotions encapsulated by these instrumental vignettes and thoughtful production, you get the sense that Maggie is at home here in this state of experimentation and consideration.
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Under the Radar
At the end of it all, Surrender is a damn-near perfect album. A triumph for both Rogers and her listeners. It is among the most educated and insightful works to come from any pop artist in recent years, and, despite being early on in the decade, will surely serve as a high watermark for pop music in the ’20s. Rogers’ songwriting abilities seem somehow supernatural, the honesty of her lyrics a welcome relief in the age of irony. A higher bar has been set by Surrender, and one suspects that the effort will beget a slew of recordings inspired by its richly idiosyncratic sound—an invigorating and necessary innovation in marvelous alt pop. With Surrender, Rogers has refused to do just that, defying the pull of monotony and cliché, crafting instead her masterpiece.
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Melodic Magazine
Maggie Rogers’ ‘Surrender’ is too good to resist.
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The Forty-Five
It’s not a perfect album. ’I’ve Got A Friend’ doesn’t really have a place (although the lyrical portraits of her friends are beautiful), and ‘Honey’ sounds like a reprise of ‘Overdrive’ without adding much more. But it’s not claiming to be perfect. It’s full of life, in all its mess and excess –our voices break; we shout the same words again and again in the hope that they’ll mean something if we say them enough; we sit by the water and sing for salvation. ‘Surrender’ shows us the way back.
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Range
With some tales along the way about running off into the woods with her partner, adorable tributes to her genuine friendships that have stuck with her along the way, and destroying kitchenware just to observe the shattered aftermath, the combination of Rogers’ always surprisingly soulful vocals and musically latching onto the rising wave of all things alt-rock make for a genre-bending, frenetic, and exhilarating musical experience.
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Mystic Sons
It is very rare that we get to hear a pop record that is just as much about sound and texture as it is the voice and lyrical content, but 'Surrender' finds a perfect middle ground between the two. Progressive and inventive as often as possible, Maggie Rogers has delivered a juggernaut of adventurous aesthetics here.
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Yours Truly
It’s also one of her most exemplary projects to date – a pleasure to the ears and food to the soul. The songstress beautifully explored several subjects, taking the listener with him into musical orbits that they wouldn’t want to leave in a hurry.
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The Music Desk
huge sound, huge disappointment.
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Dork
An album that takes all those months of pent up tension and shakes them out like nobody’s watching, the only exception ‘Surrender’ is willing to make is to its own instinctive urges. Feeding both the head and the heart, Maggie Rogers has gone feral. Let the joy spring forth.
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Albumlogy
On Surrender, Maggie Rogers lets her chaos become 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.
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The Skinny
It’s a shame then that Rogers doesn’t commit to that oversaturated sucker punch. The baggy mid-section gives over to pared back singer-songwriter fare that reigns it all in, the record’s bright flame burning out rather too fast.
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The Irish Times
There’s no doubt that Rogers is a talented musician, but it’s often difficult to make a real emotional connection with these surface-level songs. That said, there’s no doubt you’ll be hearing more of them on daytime radio.
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