Maggie Rogers - Surrender

Maggie Rogers is just so darn good at presenting her core artistry and sense of self. It's one of the main aspects of her personality that was evident from the start, emblemized by that viral video of her playing her soon-to-be hit "Alaska" to Pharrell Williams while at music school in 2016. It's that sort of grounded, unabashedly earnest, and boldly uplifting vibe that courses through all of her proper sophomore album, 2022's Surrender. The album arrives three years after her breakthrough debut, Heard It in a Past Life, for which she picked up a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. On the heels of that success, rather than jumping back into the pop fray, Rogers took some time away from recording, enrolling at Harvard Divinity School, where she earned a Master of Religion and Public Life. While religion is never explicitly addressed on Surrender, there is a feeling of defiant joy to the album that one could easily connect to a spiritual enlightenment. Without ever falling into a drea