At first glance, this work may look more like a challenging academic examination rather than the latest pop album from a musician whose previous single featured an international K-pop icon. Divided across 4 different parts and sung in 13 tongues, it is a head-spinning symphonic work exploring female mystery, spiritual ascent, and bodily change, often by way of the perspective of various female saints. The end of a romance—a topic handled with raw openness elsewhere—is launched skyward here, supported by the constant sound of a major orchestra and work from an award-winning composer within a vast roll call of collaborators. Its sheer ambition alone renders the work of other artists look rather modest.
Transcending Academic Exercise
That Lux manages to transcend dry intellectual posturing feels almost a miracle, and complete credit belonging to Rosalía. Although this is not her first project to blend the past and modern styles, its scale are much higher here, with the balancing act far more precarious. The element that truly raises this fourth album, outside of its complex tunes, dense compositions, and engrained drama, is a core sense of playfulness. Much like the iconic artist during her peak, you find a wondrous sense to the vocalist's voice that pulls the listener into its whirlwind. When she's breaking hearts apart, you nevertheless desire to be right there for the journey.
A Signature Example of Joy
This exuberant energy shines brightly on the stirring Italian ballad about a saint. It bathes in a sorrowful melancholy for several minutes. Then, all the music drops silent, to reveal we hear a gleeful laugh and a comment before a comically exaggerated string surge thuds in with comedic force. The track then shifts to the frenetic single featuring galloping strings, a powerful choir, and a surprise role from none other than herself.
"The magic of this album lies in the listener never exactly know—or even want to know—what it is going to next."
Almost each track finishes at a totally distinct point from where it began. One moment examines the fleeting trappings of fame over a featherlight symphony before collapsing in electronic cacophony. Elsewhere, a song echoing the artist's earlier rhythmic style starts out moody and brooding, featuring menacing beats, before fluttering traditional rhythms and an angelic choir arrive to soften its rough edges.
The Bridge Between Art and Pop
A key balancing act of Lux is straddling the line between radical innovation and broad accessibility. It is little surprise that it has achieved the artist's first release to crack the Top 5 of key markets: its heart contains a suite of truly catchy pop songs. One track performed primarily in the English language builds around a refrain that feels to collect increasingly infectious melodies as it spirals upward. This feat gets repeated by another powerful track that expands and constricts, weaving multiple melodies as an intricate weave.
- A waltz-like number seduces with its jaunty, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
- In its words, it aligns with pop culture impact of other heartbreak songs, lambasting an ex- partner labeled an "emotional terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the singing carry a sharp smile, akin to a fairy-tale character concealing a knife: "Gold medal in being a motherfucker / You've won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Feast for the Ears
This album represents popular music on a grand level, a hungry grasp for capital-A artistry in an era of impending AI-generated blankness. It eschews self-absorption for glorious transcendence, creating a dramatic spectacle that masterfully controls its built-in ridiculousness. It is a deep source of buried gems that takes time to fully mine but never seem like hard work. Where other big releases of the year felt like a meager scraps, Lux offers a lavish feast at which the guests around it, some intoxicated on sacred wine, flutter between discussions about historical figures, the profound sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and shared stories about useless men. It is a contemporary theatrical production from pop's most endlessly inventive practitioner.
