Maggie Rogers - Alaska

Today's artist and song comes highly recommended from Robin of our favourite non-us music blog, Breaking More Waves, who put it at #1 in his favourite songs of 2016, although given the artist in question has been so highly tipped on many "Ones To Watch" lists, it may end up cropping up on quite a few 2017 lists as well in 12 months time.

Maggie Rogers is a Maryland singer/songwriter who started out as a folk musician, but eventually started to explore dance music following a sojourn to France, the capital of repetitive beats. She then eventually won over "Give It To Me" hit-maker Pharrell Williams, before spending the rest of the year winning over just about everyone else with her sophisticated pop sound. She's on the BBC Sound of 2017 longlist, and although at the time of writing the top 5 haven't been announced, her name is very likely to feature.

But let's get straight to the song in question, the song that shares its name with a state that many people erroneously believe that your humble captain spent a year living in, "Alaska".* It is a song in which you can hear how the synthesis of folksy origins melds with the more electronic elements with a certain level of grace. It calls to mind the music or Lorde, albeit with a more organic sound. She's made a video for the song as well, which is pretty engaging.

Although "Alaska" hasn't grabbed us at first as much the hype may have suggested, it's still a rather nice song, and there's no doubt we will be hearing quite a bit from Maggie Rogers in 2017.





*As touched upon fleetingly on this blog before, prior to starting this blog, I spent a year living in the state of Nebraska. However, whenever I tell anyone of this fact, the first question I always get asked is "isn't it cold up there"? At this point, I normally have to point out that Alaska and Nebraska are in fact two separate states about three thousand miles away from each. Although how much of this is down to ignorance to the existence of Nebraska and how much of it is due to my refined Belfast accents' mangling of American state names is not something I have yet tested to date.