🔗 Share this article

On the surface, this album might appear closer to a challenging academic challenge rather than a new pop project by a musician whose previous single featured a global K-pop icon. Split across 4 separate sections and performed in 13 languages, we have a head-spinning orchestral-influenced work investigating female mystery, religious transcendence, and bodily transformation, frequently via the perspective of various women saints. The end of a relationship—a topic treated with raw openness elsewhere—is shot upwards on this record, supported by the constant presence of a full orchestra and contributions from an award-winning songwriter among a long list of collaborators. The pure audacity alone renders the efforts of other artists seem quite laughable.

Rising Above Academic Pretense

The fact that this album succeeds in transcend overly intellectual chin-stroking is nearly a miracle, and sole praise going to the artist. Although it's not her first album to alchemize historical sounds and the present, its ambitions are much higher on Lux, and the balancing act more pronounced. The element that truly raises this fourth album, beyond its multilayered melodies, rich compositions, and engrained theatricality, proves to be a core sense of playfulness. Much like the iconic Björk at her peak, you find a captivating sense to Rosalía's voice which sweeps you up in its whirlwind. Even when she's tearing your heart apart, the listener nevertheless desire to be right there through the journey.

A Prime Example of Exuberance

That playful energy comes forth clearly on the stunning piano-led song inspired by Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for several minutes. Suddenly, everything drops away, to reveal there's a spontaneous laugh and a declaration before a comically over-the-top orchestral surge thuds in like cartoonish force. The song immediately shifts to the wild single featuring racing orchestration, an imposing choir, and a cameo appearance from none other than herself.

"The magic of Lux is that you rarely quite know—or even wish to predict—where it will go next."

Almost each song ends at a totally distinct point from how it began. A track examines the fleeting nature of celebrity over a featherlight symphony before disintegrating in digital chaos. Elsewhere, a song echoing the artist's earlier trap-infused style starts off dark and brooding, featuring prowling beats, before fluttering traditional handclaps and an angelic chorus arrive to smooth its rough corners.

The Bridge Between Experiment and Accessibility

Another crucial achievement on Lux is navigating the gap of bold innovation and mainstream accessibility. This is no coincidence that it has achieved the artist's highest-charting work to break into the upper reaches of major charts: at its core a collection of utterly catchy pop songs. A song sung primarily in English builds on a refrain that seems to collect increasingly infectious hooks as it spirals skyward. This feat is repeated on another powerful ballad that expands and constricts, intertwining multiple melodies as a complex tapestry.

• A dance-infused number seduces via its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and an anthemic hook.
• Lyrically, it shares with pop culture honesty of other breakup anthems, eviscerating a former partner labeled an "psychological terrorist".
• Across these tracks, the vocals have a sharp edge, akin to a storybook figure hiding 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 level, a hungry grasp for high Art in an era of looming AI-generated sameness. It rejects self-absorption for glorious transcendence, crafting a dramatic spectacle that masterfully manages its own inherent excess. It is an abundant well of hidden gems that takes time to completely mine but doesn't feels like hard work. While some major pop albums of the year felt like feasting on meal, Lux is a sumptuous banquet at which the characters at the table, perhaps intoxicated on sacred drink, flutter between discussions about historical saints, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and common stories about hopeless partners. In essence, it's a modern-day musical from pop's truly endlessly inventive visionary.