Entertainment Weekly - February 24 - March 3, 2017

BIG

BREAKING

WHO

MAGGIE ROGERS

WHY YOU KNOW HER

She’s the voice behind the

Pharrell-approved jam “Alaska.”

WHY YOU WILL KNOW HER

Her new EP, out now, offers a

visionary take on electronic music.

“I’ve never heard anything that

sounds like that,” Pharrell Wil-

liams said last February when

Maggie Rogers first played him

her song “Alaska,” during a

master class at NYU, where she

was a student. When his

stunned, GIF-able reaction to

Rogers’ richly textured electro-

pop was uploaded to YouTube

later that year, it became an

internet sensation—and helped

Rogers score a major-label deal.

But making pop music

wasn’t Rogers’ goal when she

started university. Growing up

in rural Maryland, Rogers says

her first passion was folk music,

until a semester abroad in

Europe sparked her interest in

dance music. “[Seeing] people

dancing to the same song for

nine minutes made me realize

how incredibly instinctual and

primal rhythm is,” she says.

So Rogers, 22, turned to the

natural world for a crash course

in rhythm, studying patterns

of water and frogs. Samples

of birds are even woven into her

EP,Now That the Light Is Fading,

which combines folk and elec-

tronic elements in ways that

blur the distinction between

analog and digital. Says Rogers,

“Synths and computers are no

longer the ‘other.’ We’re moving

into a world where they don’t

have to define the genre you’re

making.”—Nolan Feeney

MY NEW RECORD

IS DEFINITELY

THE HARDEST

ONE FOR ME

SO FAR. IT’S THE

RAWEST. BUT

I LIKE THAT....

IT MEANS I’M

GETTING

BETTER AT IT.”

—RYAN ADAMS

5

4

3

The Artist Formerly Known as Off-LimitsAfter a period

of Tidal exclusivity, Prince tunes are streaming on Spotify,

Apple Music, and other services.•That’s So Metal Metal-

lica will tour its 2016 double LP across the U.S. starting in May.

NOTEWORTHY

just, like, the horrible hits—and

then one of my own songs. And

then Steely Dan, but I sung it as

Ozzy [Osbourne]. And I also did

some in a Muppet voice. [Laughs]



HOW I BUILD AN ALBUM

The new record [Adams’ first

studio release since his 2015

split from his wife of seven years,

This Is Us star Mandy Moore] is

definitely the hardest one for me

so far. It’s the rawest, I think.

So that’s been really challenging

and new, which is pretty wild.

But I like that my last two records

are the hardest ones—it means

I’m getting better at it. I’m still try-

ing to foreshadow and color

things with metaphor and allitera-

tion, lead someone to romantic

conclusions. I still believe in that

seduction, you know?



THE SONG I WANT PLAYED

AT MY FUNERAL

The [19th-century French classical

composer< 5 >Gabriel] Fauré’s

Requiem. That’s my favorite piece

of music of all time. I like the

deeper pipe-organ-and-chorale-

and-string version more than the

modern—the strict interpretation.

And not in a cathedral, maybe a

Viking burial. I suspect [my death]

would be a good amount of time

from now, so ideally it would be on

the moon; I think that would be

pretty nice. But it will probably be

Los Angeles. That’s my home now.

girl in a graveyard on the cover

[39/Smooth]. I love that record.

It also had Jawbreaker, the Mr. T

Experience, all those kinds of

bands. I liked some of what she put

on there, but it wasn’t me exactly.



THE MUSIC THAT MAKES

ME FEEL GOOD

Maybe the Smiths? I listen to them

or [Norwegian black-metal band]

Emperor, which I guess is the

very opposite. But those kinds of

records, they just resonate with

me for some reason. The Smiths

because I can just get lost in that

world, and Emperor because I can

get lost inthat world, and they’re

both very defined musically and

thematically, in a very deep way.



THE MUSIC THAT MAKES ME

FEEL EVERYTHING

When I’m listening to classical

music live, like if I’m at the Philhar-

monic in L.A., I definitely can

get overwhelmed by some amaz-

ing moment. And I teared up

when< 4 >Slayer played “Captor

of Sin” at the Palladium; that

was pretty huge.



MY BEST KARAOKE JAMS

The first time I ever really did it

was about four or five days ago

in Tokyo, actually. I did a Hootie

& the Blowfish song, a Nickelback

song—whichever ones they had,

FEBRUARY 24/MARCH 3, 2017 EW.COM 95

ARMSTRONG: FRED DUVAL/FILMMAGIC; ARAYA: DENISE TRUSCELLO/WIREIMAGE; FAUR: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; ROGERS: JACK JENRY BRIDG

LAND