On the surface, this album might appear more like a difficult scholarly quiz than a new popular music record by an artist whose last single was a collaboration with an international K-pop star. Divided across 4 different sections and voiced in thirteen tongues, we have a head-spinning orchestral-influenced album exploring feminine mystery, religious ascent, and corporal transformation, frequently via the lens of different saintly figures. The dissolution of a romance—a theme handled with raw honesty elsewhere—soars skyward here, supported by the constant presence of a full orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter within a long list of collaborators. Its sheer audacity by itself makes the efforts of contemporary pop stars seem rather laughable.
Rising Above Scholarly Pretense
The fact that Lux succeeds in escape overly intellectual chin-stroking feels almost miraculous, and sole credit going to the artist. While it's not the first time album to alchemize the past and the present, its ambitions feel far greater on Lux, and the tightrope walk far more dramatic. What really raises this fourth album, beyond its multilayered tunes, rich arrangements, and inherent drama, proves to be an essential sense of playfulness. Similar to the iconic artist during her height, there is a captivating quality to Rosalía's singing that pulls the listener into its tornado. When she is breaking your heart in two, the listener nevertheless want to be right there through the journey.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
That playful spirit shines brightly on a stunning piano-led song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for several minutes. Suddenly, everything drops silent, to reveal we hear a gleeful giggle followed by a declaration prior to a comically over-the-top string crescendo thuds down with cartoonish impact. The song immediately shifts to the frenetic single featuring galloping orchestration, an imposing choir, and a cameo role from the artist Björk.
"The magic of this album lies in the listener never exactly know—nor want to know—where it is going next."
Nearly each track ends in a completely distinct point than where it began. One moment explores the fleeting nature of celebrity over a delicate orchestration before disintegrating in electronic chaos. Another, a song echoing her earlier rhythmic work starts off dark and brooding, with prowling vocals, until fluttering flamenco rhythms and a heavenly chorus arrive to smooth the song's jagged corners.
The Balance Between Experiment & Accessibility
A key achievement of Lux is straddling the line between radical innovation and mainstream accessibility. This is little surprise that the album has become her highest-charting release to crack the upper reaches of key charts: its heart contains a collection of truly undeniable hits. One track sung primarily in English swells around a chorus that feels to collect increasingly infectious melodies as it spins skyward. This trick is repeated on another powerful ballad that expands and constricts, weaving multiple melodies like a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused number seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along hook.
- Lyrically, it shares with pop culture honesty of contemporary heartbreak songs, eviscerating a former partner described as an "emotional terrorist".
- Across these tracks, the vocals carry a painted-on smile, like a storybook figure concealing a knife: "Gold medal in being a motherfucker / You have won the trophy of letdown."
An Opulent Feast for the Soul
Lux represents pop on a grand level, a hungry reach for capital-A Art in an era of impending AI-generated sameness. It rejects self-absorption in favor of glorious elevation, crafting a dramatic spectacle that skillfully manages its inherent excess. It is a deep well of hidden gems that takes time to fully mine but never seem like a chore. While other major pop albums of the year felt like feasting on scraps, this record offers a sumptuous feast at which the guests around it, some intoxicated on sacred wine, flutter from discussions about ancient figures, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering grief, and shared gossip about hopeless men. In essence, it's a modern-day musical from music's most restlessly inventive practitioner.
