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]

Heart 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, based on more than 400 million streams of its tracks.[10]

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]

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 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.[24]

Track listing and credits adapted from Tidal.[38]

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

• Heard It in a Past Life at Discogs (list of releases)