SONG FOR THE MOMENT: MAGGIE ROGERS - IN THE LIVING ROOM

4/5

Maggie's Room 

Ever since Maggie Rogers followed the salad day 'Dog Years' of skimming 'Split Stones' with her breakthrough album debut, 'Heard It In A Past Life', she's furthered herself as one of the best artists of this generation and the next one to come. Her soaring sophomore 'Surrender' refused to do just that as she cut and bleached her hair and partied hard. Another two years later, she went back to her roots for another new album, and one of the best this year. Which even offered her the opportunity to troll the New York Knicks in the Mecca of the World's Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden.

Now, she's followed 'Don't Forget Me' with another new single from the back pocket of her own great American songbook to follow. As if we ever could forget one of the best and brightest. Remember when she followed her 'Past Life' record-selling glory with the gold single 'Love You For A Long Time'? Well, 'In The Living Room' we get the same thing for one of the singer/songwriter's best record yet. Cinematically cued over a gorgeous video between lovers, that both look great, in the fashioned living room of their own shared apartment. This is classic Maggie Rogers, giving her and us her own signature sound like a Springsteen, or her own revised version of the American dream. In a place, so remote in the company of the one you love, and don't want to lose, that it could even be a lonely roadside motel.

Eyes are the soul, and they can stir the emotions and nuanced notions of thousands of words that even the greatest love songs couldn't write. You can see it in hers, in this video's opening. Lying in bed with her muse. Spooned and connected, but also a thousand miles away in stares and the unspoken things our hearts sing as Maggie traces the veins on her partner's arms like the lines she wishes she could express. "You trace your steps back to the start/See the clock there slowing/The hindsight's been the hardest part/Hurts to see you glowing/'Cause I remember late September/Your silhouette on blue wallpaper/In the hallway/You drew the line and pulled me under/But do you ever stop to wonder/About me?" she emotes. All before the chorus of heartbreaking seasonal change dances in the living room like the dark. The music video, in this post MTV, TikTok generation, is undeniably sexy. Making a star out of its muse, like South Korean singer KATIE's 'Unbreak'. Hoping the heart that matters does the same. In the living room we find comfort like the one who feels like home. And this song that reminds us, that even through the hard times, when it comes to loving memory, we're never really alone. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Sing-A-Long: Maggie Rogers: 'Say It', 'Horses', 'Love You For A Long Time'