And also fallingscore…

[Video]
[5.33]

William John: Self-preservation amidst noise and rapid change is not easy, and Maggie Rogers can feel forces beyond her control encroaching into the “clear” that she was once able to call her own. This is an experience familiar to many, manifesting in all facets of life — work, relationships, our impending, fossil-fuel-driven doom — to varying degrees. Often it’s only once that “clear” is punctured by the torrent of externalities that we are given the licence to express our grievances, vulnerabilities, and true desires. We started the year with Oprah telling us to remain hopeful of a brighter morning, and I’ve returned over and over to “Fallingwater” this year because its confluence of these ideas, and Rostam Batmanglij’s comforting piano chords, and that guitar that strums with portent at the end of first chorus, and the way it collapses and then rebuilds itself into something even more impossibly beautiful, and Rogers’ voice, splendidly expressive and creatively employed, has allowed me, in a way perhaps no other song has this year, to believe that might actually be possible.
[10]

Vikram Joseph: None of Maggie Rogers’ singles since “Dog Years” have captivated me in the same way. The lush, serene piano chords and gospel-tinged coda on “Fallingwater” are nice enough, but it’s too tasteful and restrained to make me feel much of anything, and there’s also a really leaden synth-drum hit. It’s like we were promised Joni Mitchell but got Dido instead.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Florence Welch impression on the vocals; lugubrious piano arrangement; light gospel diffusion; the kind of mildly thwacking beat that seems promising until it goes nowhere forever: Maggie Rogers is fully absorbed by The New Boring. When early reviews compared her to Peter Gabriel, I had hoped that’d mean she’d make an “Intruder.”
[2]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Everything “Fallingwater” has going for it gets derailed by its final 100 seconds. This extended coda features some ugly drums and unnecessarily aims for inward-looking poignance, sapping all energy the song once had.
[4]

Iain Mew: The tiny, tinny beats dominate “Fallingwater.” It’s like Rogers and the piano are trapped in a box way too small for them, and when the coda finally lets the air in it blows the song right out.
[3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I’m a sucker for any song that has a second gear, but the transition in “Fallingwater” is especially sublime. It’s not the traditional model for this sort of thing– neither a sudden rush of energy nor an acoustic collapse. Rogers instead lets all the different parts of the stately midtempo R&B number she had built mix together, dropping all pretenses of restraint so things can flow. It’s a bold move, and Rogers pulls it off without flinching.
[9]

Juana Giaimo: The first lines of the song are so pure, strong, and sharp that it’s impossible not to pay attention to Rogers’ voice. But part of that energy is lost when the backing vocals enter and when in the last part she adds playful vocal loops.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: The blurry formlessness of the strings and the dull thump of the percussion form a perfect cushion for Roger’s stupendous voice — the problem is that it’s a kind of stupendous voice that we’ve all heard before, and so past the luxurious sonic surface there’s not a lot of meat to chew on. Her hydrological imagery is functional but has no clear end goal; her heartbreak is devastating yet vague.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Give Maggie Rogers credit for embracing the gospel crescendo in the second half of “Fallingwater” that the first half hinted at, but the sincerity only goes so far toward palliating the so-so technique.
[5]