Heard It in a Past Life

Rogers worked on the album for two years, with Rostam Batmanglij, Greg Kurstin, and other high-profile musicians in producer roles.^[1] Rogers stated in an interview about the album that "there was so much change that happened so fast, I wasn't always sure how to make all this stuff feel like me. I was really overwhelmed for a while, and scared too."^[2][3]

The first two singles, "Alaska" and "On + Off", were previously released on Rogers' 2017 EP, Now That the Light Is Fading, followed by "Fallingwater", "Give a Little" and "Light On".^[4][5] "Light On" peaked at number one on Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs chart, becoming her first number one song on any Billboard chart.^[6] "Light On" was ranked as the 13th best song of 2019 by Billboard.^[7]

Heard It in a Past Life was released on January 18, 2019, by Debay Sounds under exclusive license to Capitol Records.^[8] According to Rolling Stone, it "announced her as a major indie-pop force and catapulted her into a yearlong tour of sold-out theaters and massive clubs".^[9] It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 in its first release week, and by April, it had sold 200,000 album-equivalent units. Since its 2019 release, the album has amassed more than 900 million streams on Spotify.^[10]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.0/10[11]
Metacritic	71/100[12]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[13]
Chicago Tribune	[14]
Clash	8/10[15]
Exclaim!	8/10[16]
The Guardian	[17]
The Irish Times	[18]
NME	[19]
Pitchfork	5.9/10[20]
Q	[21]
Rolling Stone	[22]

Close

Heard It in a Past Life was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 71, based on 23 reviews.^[12] Tony Clayton-Lea of The Irish Times called it a "vibrant electro-pop collection",^[18] while USA Today's Maeve McDermott hailed it as one of 2019's best folk-pop albums, along with Weyes Blood's Titanic Rising.^[23] Q magazine found the album "thoughtfully constructed and often enchanting",^[21] and AllMusic's Heather Phares said Rogers "finds different ways to forge her own bright, assured version of pop" on a "strong debut".^[13]

Other reviewers were more critical. Both Laura Snapes of Pitchfork^[20] and Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune believed much of the album was overproduced by high-profile co-producers to the detriment of Rogers' talents.^[14] Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger was similarly critical, but "for different reasons – they [Pitchfork] point to the production flattening Rogers' voice, I think she pushes too much and too harshly against it."^[24] Tom Hull said he "could see her developing into some kind of pop star, but may be too adult too early", giving the album a B-plus.^[25]

Heard It in a Past Life and "Light On" helped earn Rogers a Grammy Award nomination in the category of Best New Artist for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards (2020).^[26]

Track listing and credits adapted from Tidal.^[40]

• ^a signifies an additional producer
• ^b signifies a co-producer

Musicians

• Maggie Rogers – vocals (all tracks), clapping (1), piano (3, 6), percussion (5, 10), programming (8), background vocals (9); drums, keyboards (12)
• Greg Kurstin – drums, keyboards (1–3, 5, 10, 12), bass (1, 3, 5, 10), guitar (1, 3, 5, 10, 12), synth bass (2, 12), piano (3, 5, 10, 12), percussion (10, 12)
• Doug Schadt – programming (4, 8)
• Kid Harpoon – acoustic guitar, bass guitar, drum programming, electric guitar, piano (5)
• Nicholas Das – programming (8)
• Rostam Batmanglij – 12-string acoustic guitar, background vocals, drum programming, piano, shaker, synthesizer programming (9)

Technical