Dec 19 - Maggie Rogers

So I normally don't like talking about real things in a very public manner, but my friend Min passed away about a week ago, and I would feel wrong not mentioning it at all. Min was a friend of mine here in Shanghai for a bit over a year now, who died suddenly last week due to complications after having emergency open heart surgery. I don't really want to talk about it very much here, but it was rough and surprising and sad, and she will be missed. Everything is good now, but it was definitely a very rough couple of days when I first found out. Kind of a huge deal in my life this year, so I feel like I need to mention it even though I don't want to talk about it. So there you go. 2016 sucks. Very glad it's almost over.

But on to happier subjects. Now that I've written my 2016 best of list, it's time to look at 2017. One of the big artists who came out in 2016 was Maggie Rogers, who shot to a tiny little bit of fame when she produced the song Alaska as a student in Pharrell's production master class at NYU. As it turns out each student in the class had to produce 1 song, which she forgot to do, but happened to have a song on her laptop ready to go. And so she played it for the class, and brought Pharrell to tears. That song was Alaska, and it is great. Maybe not tear inducing great, but really great. She has one other song out now, but definitely one to watch for 2017. And the BBC agrees, as they have her on their Sound of 2017 long list.