🔗 Share this article

Initially, this album might appear more like a difficult scholarly challenge rather than a new popular music project from an artist whose last hit was a collaboration with a global pop star. Split across 4 separate parts and voiced in 13 languages, it is a dizzying orchestral-influenced album investigating feminine mystery, religious ascent, and bodily transformation, frequently via the prism of various saintly figures. The end of a relationship—a topic treated with grounded honesty elsewhere—soars heavenward on this record, buoyed by the constant sound of a major symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning composer within a long roll call of contributors. The pure daring alone makes the work of contemporary artists look rather modest.

Rising Above Academic Pretense

The fact that Lux manages to escape dry academic chin-stroking feels nothing short of a miracle, with complete praise belonging to Rosalía. While it's not her first album to fuse the past and the present, the scale feel much greater here, with the tightrope walk far more dramatic. The element that really elevates her fourth release, beyond its multilayered tunes, rich arrangements, and inherent theatricality, is a core sense of fun. Much like the iconic artist at her peak, there is a captivating sense to Rosalía's voice that pulls you into its tornado. Even when she is tearing hearts apart, you nevertheless desire to stay right there through the ride.

A Signature Example of Exuberance

That playful spirit shines clearly on a stirring Italian song inspired by Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched whirlpool for more than four moments. Suddenly, everything drops silent, and there's a spontaneous laugh and a declaration prior to a comically over-the-top orchestral crescendo thuds down like cartoonish impact. The song then segues to the wild track featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choir, and a cameo appearance from the artist Björk.

"The charm of Lux is that you never exactly understand—nor wish to know—what you is going to next."

Nearly every song ends at a completely different place from where it began. A track explores the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a featherlight symphony before collapsing in digital chaos. Elsewhere, a song that recalls the artist's previous trap-infused work starts off moody and brooding, featuring menacing beats, until sudden flamenco handclaps and a heavenly chorus arrive to soften its jagged edges.

The Balance Of Art & Accessibility

A key achievement of Lux is navigating the gap of bold experimentation and mainstream appeal. This is no coincidence that the album has become her first release to crack the Top 5 of major markets: its heart contains a collection of utterly catchy hits. A song performed primarily in the English language builds on a refrain that feels to collect increasingly infectious hooks while it spins upward. This trick gets repeated by another expansive ballad that expands and constricts, weaving layered tunes as an intricate tapestry.

• A dance-infused number charms via its playful, theatrical flair and a chant-along hook.
• Lyrically, it shares the pop culture honesty of contemporary heartbreak songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "emotional terrorist".
• Throughout these tracks, the singing have a painted-on edge, akin to a fairy-tale figure hiding a blade: "Top prize in being a scoundrel / You have the podium of letdown."

A Maximalist Feast for the Ears

This album represents pop on a maximalist scale, a hungry reach for high Art amid of impending artificial sameness. It rejects self-absorption in favor of glorious elevation, crafting an over-the-top drama that skillfully controls its own inherent excess. This is an abundant source of hidden treasure that takes time to fully explore but never feels like a chore. Where some major pop albums of the year felt like a meager scraps, this record offers a lavish banquet at which the guests around the table, perhaps intoxicated on sacred drink, flit between discussions about ancient saints, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and common stories about hopeless men. In essence, it's a contemporary musical from music's most restlessly inventive practitioner.