On the surface, this work could seem more like a difficult scholarly challenge than the latest popular music record by an artist who just had a last single featured an international K-pop icon. Broken across 4 separate parts and sung in thirteen languages, this is a breathtaking classical-tinged opus exploring female mystery, spiritual transcendence, and physical transformation, frequently via the perspective of various saintly figures. The dissolution of a relationship—a theme handled with raw honesty elsewhere—soars skyward on this record, buoyed by the constant presence of a full symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning composer among an extensive roll call of contributors. The pure audacity by itself renders the efforts of other artists seem quite modest.
Rising Above Scholarly Exercise
That this album manages to escape dry academic posturing feels nothing short of a miracle, and full praise belonging to the artist. Although it's not her first album to fuse the past with modern styles, its scale feel far greater on Lux, with the balancing act more pronounced. What really raises this fourth release, beyond its complex melodies, rich compositions, and engrained drama, proves to be a core sense of joy. Much like the legendary Björk at her peak, you find a captivating quality to Rosalía's singing which sweeps the listener up in its tornado. When she's breaking your heart in two, the listener still desire to be alongside her for the journey.
A Signature Example of Exuberance
This exuberant energy comes forth clearly on a stirring piano-led ballad inspired by Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched whirlpool over several minutes. Suddenly, everything falls silent, and there's a spontaneous laugh and a comment before a comically exaggerated orchestral crescendo crashes in like cartoonish force. The track then shifts into the frenetic single driven by racing orchestration, an imposing choir, and a surprise role from none other than Björk.
"The magic of Lux is that the listener never quite know—or even want to predict—where you will go to next."
Nearly every song ends at a completely distinct place than how it started. A track examines the fleeting nature of fame with a delicate orchestration only to disintegrating in digital cacophony. Elsewhere, a song that recalls her previous rhythmic style begins off dark and sinister, featuring menacing vocals, before sudden traditional rhythms and a heavenly chorus enter to smooth the song's jagged edges.
The Balance Of Experiment and Pop
A key balancing act of Lux involves navigating the gap of radical innovation and broad appeal. This is little coincidence that it has become her highest-charting work to break into the upper reaches of major markets: its heart contains a suite of utterly catchy pop songs. A song performed entirely in the English language swells around a refrain that seems to gather increasingly infectious melodies while it spins skyward. That feat gets repeated by another powerful track that expands and constricts, weaving multiple tunes as an intricate weave.
- A waltz-like song seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along chorus.
- In its words, it aligns the pop culture impact of other breakup songs, lambasting an ex- partner described as an "psychological terrorist".
- Throughout these tracks, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, like a fairy-tale figure concealing a knife: "Gold medal in acting like a motherfucker / You have the podium of letdown."
A Maximalist Feast for the Ears
Lux is popular music on a grand level, a hungry grasp for high Art in an era of looming AI-generated blankness. It eschews self-absorption for glorious elevation, creating a dramatic drama that skillfully manages its built-in excess. This is an abundant source of hidden gems that requires patience to completely mine but never feels like hard work. While some big pop albums of the year felt like feasting on scraps, this record is a sumptuous banquet where the characters at the table, some intoxicated on holy wine, flit between conversations about historical saints, the profound feeling of soul-shattering sadness, and common gossip about useless men. It is a modern-day musical from music's truly endlessly creative practitioner.
