At first glance, this work may look closer to a difficult academic examination rather than the latest popular music record by a musician who just had a previous hit featured a global pop star. Broken across four different sections and performed in 13 languages, it is a dizzying orchestral-influenced opus investigating feminine mystique, spiritual transcendence, and bodily change, frequently via the perspective of various female saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a topic treated with grounded openness elsewhere—soars skyward on this record, carried by the constant presence of a full symphony orchestra and contributions from an award-winning songwriter among a long roll call of contributors. Its sheer ambition by itself makes the work of contemporary artists appear quite modest.
Rising Above Academic Exercise
That Lux succeeds in avoid dry academic posturing feels almost a miracle, and full praise belonging to Rosalía. While this is not the first time album to alchemize the past with the present, its ambitions feel much higher on Lux, and the balancing act far more precarious. What really raises this fourth album, outside of its multilayered melodies, rich arrangements, and engrained theatricality, is an essential sense of fun. Much like the iconic artist during her height, there is a wondrous quality to Rosalía's voice which sweeps the listener into its whirlwind. When she is tearing your heart in two, the listener still desire to be right there for the ride.
A Prime Moment of Joy
This playful energy shines brightly during a stunning piano-led song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a sorrowful whirlpool over more than four minutes. Then, all the music drops away, to reveal we hear a gleeful laugh followed by a declaration before a comically exaggerated orchestral surge crashes down like cartoonish impact. The song then segues into the wild track featuring galloping orchestration, an imposing choral group, and a cameo role from none other than Björk.
"The charm with this album lies in you rarely quite know—nor want to predict—what it is going to next."
Almost each song finishes in a totally different place than how it started. A track explores the transient trappings of celebrity over a featherlight orchestration before disintegrating into digital chaos. Another, a song echoing the artist's previous trap-infused work begins out dark and sinister, featuring menacing beats, before fluttering flamenco rhythms and a heavenly choir enter to smooth its rough corners.
The Bridge Of Experiment & Pop
A key balancing act on the album is straddling the gap between radical innovation and broad appeal. It is no coincidence that it has become her first release to crack the Top 5 of major markets: at its core a suite of truly undeniable pop songs. A song performed entirely in English swells on a refrain that feels to gather increasingly nagging hooks while it spirals skyward. This trick is echoed by another powerful ballad that grows and contracts, weaving layered tunes like a complex weave.
- A waltz-like song seduces via its jaunty, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along chorus.
- In its words, it aligns the pop culture honesty of contemporary breakup anthems, lambasting an ex- partner described as an "psychological bully".
- Throughout the album, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, akin to a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in acting like a scoundrel / You've the podium of letdown."
An Opulent Banquet for the Soul
This album is pop on a grand scale, an ambitious grasp for capital-A artistry in an era of looming AI-generated blankness. It eschews self-absorption for glorious elevation, creating an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully manages its inherent excess. It is a deep source of buried gems that requires time to fully explore but doesn't seem like hard work. Where other big pop albums of the year seemed like a meager scraps, Lux is a lavish banquet where the guests at it, some tipsy on sacred drink, flutter between conversations about historical saints, the profound feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common gossip about useless men. In essence, it's a contemporary musical from music's most endlessly inventive visionary.
