🔗 Share this article

Initially, this album may look more like a difficult scholarly challenge than the latest pop project from a musician whose last hit featured an international K-pop star. Divided across 4 different movements and sung in thirteen tongues, it is a dizzying orchestral-influenced album that delves into feminine mystery, spiritual ascent, and corporal transformation, often by way of the perspective of various women saints. The dissolution of a relationship—a topic treated with raw openness elsewhere—is shot heavenward here, buoyed by the lush presence of a major symphony orchestra and work from an award-winning songwriter among an extensive list of collaborators. The pure daring by itself renders the efforts of other pop stars appear rather laughable.

Rising Above Academic Exercise

That Lux succeeds in escape overly academic chin-stroking is nothing short of a miracle, with sole credit going to Rosalía. Although it's not her first project to alchemize historical sounds with modern styles, its ambitions feel far higher here, and the tightrope walk more precarious. What truly elevates this fourth release, outside of its multilayered tunes, dense arrangements, and inherent theatricality, proves to be a core sense of fun. Much like the iconic artist at her height, there is a captivating quality to Rosalía's singing that pulls the listener up in its whirlwind. Even when she is tearing hearts apart, the listener nevertheless desire to be right there through the ride.

A Signature Example of Exuberance

This exuberant spirit shines brightly during the stirring Italian ballad about a saint. It bathes in a sorrowful melancholy over more than four moments. Suddenly, everything drops silent, and we hear a gleeful laugh and a declaration before a comically over-the-top orchestral crescendo crashes in like cartoonish force. The song then segues to the frenetic track driven by racing strings, a powerful choir, and a cameo role from the artist herself.

"The magic with Lux lies in the listener never quite understand—nor want to predict—what you is going next."

Almost each song concludes at a completely distinct place than how it began. A track examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a featherlight symphony before collapsing in digital chaos. Elsewhere, a song echoing her earlier trap-infused work starts out dark and brooding, with prowling beats, before fluttering flamenco rhythms and a heavenly choir enter to smooth the song's jagged corners.

The Balance Between Experiment and Accessibility

Another crucial achievement on Lux involves straddling the line between radical innovation and mainstream accessibility. This is little coincidence that it has become the artist's highest-charting release to break into the Top 5 of major markets: its heart contains a suite of utterly catchy hits. A song sung entirely in the English language swells around a refrain that seems to collect increasingly infectious hooks as it spirals upward. That feat is repeated by another powerful ballad that expands and contracts, intertwining multiple melodies like an intricate tapestry.

• A waltz-like song charms with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
• Lyrically, it aligns with cultural impact of other heartbreak anthems, lambasting an ex- lover described as an "emotional terrorist".
• Throughout these tracks, the vocals have a painted-on smile, akin to a storybook figure concealing a blade: "Top prize in acting like a motherfucker / You have won the trophy of disappointment."

A Maximalist Feast for the Soul

Lux is popular music on a maximalist scale, a hungry reach for capital-A Art in an era of looming AI-generated sameness. It eschews solipsism in favor of sublime transcendence, crafting an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully manages its built-in ridiculousness. It is an abundant source of buried treasure that requires patience to fully explore but never seem like hard work. While some big pop albums of the year felt like feasting on meal, Lux offers a sumptuous banquet where the characters at the table, perhaps intoxicated on sacred drink, flutter from conversations about historical saints, the profound feeling of heartbreaking sadness, and shared gossip about useless men. It is a modern-day theatrical production from music's most restlessly creative practitioner.