At first glance, this work could seem more like a challenging university challenge rather than a new pop record from a musician who just had a previous single featured a global pop star. Divided across four different sections and voiced in thirteen tongues, this is a dizzying symphonic work exploring female mystery, spiritual transcendence, and corporal transformation, often through the prism of various saintly figures. The end of a relationship—a topic treated with raw honesty elsewhere—is shot skyward here, supported by the constant sound of a major symphony orchestra and input from an award-winning songwriter within a long roll call of collaborators. The pure daring by itself renders the work of contemporary artists appear rather laughable.
Transcending Academic Pretense
That this album succeeds in escape overly academic chin-stroking is almost miraculous, and sole praise going to Rosalía. While this is not the first time album to fuse the past and the present, its stakes are far greater on Lux, with the balancing act more precarious. The element that really raises this fourth album, beyond its complex melodies, rich compositions, and engrained drama, is an essential sense of playfulness. Similar to the legendary artist during her peak, there is a wondrous sense to the vocalist's voice that pulls you up in its whirlwind. When she is breaking hearts in two, the listener still want to stay right there for the journey.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
This exuberant energy comes forth clearly during the stunning piano-led ballad about a saint. It luxuriates in a string-drenched whirlpool for more than four minutes. Then, all the music falls away, and we hear a gleeful laugh and a comment prior to a comically exaggerated string surge crashes down with cartoonish impact. The track then segues to the wild track featuring galloping strings, an imposing choral group, and a cameo role from none other than herself.
"The magic of this album lies in the listener never exactly know—nor want to predict—where it will go to next."
Nearly every track concludes at a completely different point from how it started. A track explores the transient trappings of fame over a delicate symphony before collapsing into electronic chaos. Elsewhere, a cut echoing the artist's earlier trap-infused style starts out dark and sinister, with prowling beats, before fluttering flamenco rhythms and an angelic chorus enter to smooth the song's jagged edges.
The Bridge Between Experiment & Pop
Another crucial achievement of Lux involves straddling the line of radical experimentation and mainstream accessibility. It is little coincidence that it has achieved her highest-charting work to crack the Top 5 of key charts: at its core a suite of utterly catchy pop songs. A song sung entirely in the English language swells on a refrain that feels to collect increasingly nagging melodies as it spirals upward. That trick gets echoed by another powerful ballad that expands and contracts, weaving layered melodies like a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused song charms with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and an anthemic chorus.
- In its words, it shares the pop culture impact of other breakup songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "emotional bully".
- Across the album, the singing have a sharp smile, akin to a storybook figure hiding a blade: "Top prize in acting like a motherfucker / You have the podium of letdown."
An Opulent Feast for the Soul
Lux is popular music on a grand level, an ambitious grasp for capital-A Art in an era of impending artificial sameness. It rejects solipsism in favor of sublime elevation, creating an over-the-top spectacle that masterfully controls its built-in excess. This is a deep well of hidden gems that requires patience to fully mine but doesn't feels like hard work. While other big releases of the year seemed like feasting on meal, this record offers a lavish feast where the guests around it, some intoxicated on holy wine, flutter between conversations about ancient figures, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering sadness, and shared stories about hopeless partners. In essence, it's a contemporary theatrical production from pop's most endlessly creative practitioner.
