🔗 Share this article

On the surface, this work might appear closer to a challenging university quiz than the latest popular music album from a musician whose previous hit featured an international K-pop star. Divided across 4 separate movements and voiced in 13 languages, this is a dizzying orchestral-influenced opus that delves into feminine mystique, religious ascent, and bodily change, frequently by way of the prism of various saintly figures. The end of a relationship—a topic treated with raw openness elsewhere—is shot heavenward on this record, buoyed by the constant sound of a full orchestra and work from an award-winning songwriter among a vast roll call of contributors. The pure ambition alone makes the work of contemporary artists seem quite modest.

Transcending Scholarly Exercise

That this album succeeds in transcend dry academic posturing feels nearly a miracle, with full credit belonging to the artist. Although this is not the first time album to fuse the past and modern styles, its ambitions feel far higher on Lux, and the tightrope walk more dramatic. The element that truly elevates her fourth album, outside of its complex tunes, rich compositions, and engrained drama, proves to be an essential sense of joy. Much like the iconic artist at her height, you find a wondrous quality to Rosalía's voice that pulls you into its whirlwind. Even when she is breaking your heart in two, the listener still desire to be right there through the ride.

A Prime Example of Joy

This exuberant spirit shines clearly during a stirring Italian song inspired by Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a string-drenched whirlpool for several moments. Suddenly, everything falls away, to reveal we hear a spontaneous laugh followed by a comment prior to a hilariously exaggerated string crescendo thuds down with cartoonish force. The song immediately shifts to the frenetic track featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo role from none other than Björk.

"The magic of Lux is that the listener rarely exactly know—nor wish to know—what it will go to next."

Nearly each song finishes in a completely different point from how it began. One moment examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a delicate orchestration only to collapsing into electronic chaos. Another, a cut echoing her previous rhythmic style begins off dark and sinister, with prowling vocals, until sudden traditional rhythms and a heavenly chorus arrive to soften the song's rough edges.

The Bridge Of Experiment and Pop

Another crucial achievement of the album is straddling the gap between bold innovation and mainstream appeal. This is little coincidence that the album has achieved the artist's first work to break into the upper reaches of major markets: its heart contains a suite of utterly undeniable pop songs. A song sung primarily in English swells around a chorus that feels to gather increasingly infectious melodies as it spirals skyward. That feat gets repeated by a different expansive track that expands and contracts, weaving layered melodies as an intricate tapestry.

• A dance-infused number charms via its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along chorus.
• In its words, it aligns the cultural honesty of contemporary breakup songs, eviscerating a former partner labeled an "emotional terrorist".
• Across the album, the singing have a sharp smile, akin to a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You have the podium of disappointment."

A Maximalist Feast for the Soul

Lux represents pop on a maximalist scale, a hungry grasp for high Art amid of impending AI-generated blankness. It rejects solipsism for sublime elevation, crafting a dramatic drama that masterfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. It is an abundant well of hidden treasure that takes patience to fully explore but never seem like hard work. While some major pop albums of the year felt like feasting on meal, this record is a sumptuous banquet at which the guests around it, some tipsy on sacred drink, flutter between conversations about historical saints, the profound sensation of soul-shattering sadness, and common gossip about hopeless men. In essence, it's a modern-day theatrical production from pop's most restlessly creative practitioner.