From Prince to Rosalia: Maggie Rogers’ perfect summer mixtape
Maggie Rogers has always had a way of lighting up a room whenever her music comes on. Even though she might not always be talking about the happiest scenarios in the world, it always feels like she’s writing something that needs to come out of her soul rather than putting together what she thinks would be a pop hit. To her, music has always been about the right occasion, and when compiling songs for summer, Rogers runs the gamut of indie, soul, and everything in between.
Granted, Rogers always had an eclectic musical taste from her teen years onward. While the rest of the late 1990s kids were listening to stuff like pop-punk, Rogers was listening to folksy music before getting an education on what the hottest songs of the time were. When you’re looking for songs of summer, Rogers always leaned on the electronic side of her influences.
Going through the songs that she listed as her favourites for NPR, she runs the gamut of different electronic artists like Jamie xx and Little Dragon, whose song ‘Feather’ is as much about the song as getting people on the dance floor. While a lot of artists are more concerned about writing the bops that get people moving, it takes a master’s touch to make someone feel something as they’re dancing.
That earnest approach to songwriting is also evident in some of the throwbacks she incorporates into her playlist. While The Cardigans are still most known for tracks like ‘Lovefool’ and ‘My Favourite Game’, a song like ‘Erase/Rewind’ is one of the better indie pop cuts of the last few years, with Rogers saying, “Nina Persson’s voice is so sweet, and the songwriting and the melodies are just so accessible and inviting, but in a lot of the record, they’re over this darker distortion.”
Though songs by Rosalia and Madonna are closer to what many people think of as summer jams, a good playlist is also about the melodrama that comes with the season. When combing through her favourite tracks, Rogers’s selection of ‘I Would Die 4 U’ by Prince is one of the best sleeper hits of his career. Even though anything on Purple Rain was bound to get overshadowed by everything else, this is the kind of power ballad that most hard rock bands wish they could have written in their prime.
That doesn’t mean that every song is a pick-me-up. While there are still some great energetic cuts to choose from, including tracks like ‘Die Hard’ by Kendrick Lamar and ‘Cigarettes and Coffee’ encapsulate the mellower side of summer, either when you’re vulnerable or stuck within your own thoughts as you make your way to the end of the night.
At the end of the day, though, hearing a song like ‘Break My Soul’ by Beyonce close out the playlist is everything you could want from someone like Rogers. As much as people get in their feelings when listening to some of her best material, she still knows that it’s important to deliver a good time whenever you have that audience in front of you.
