Initially, this album might appear closer to an arduous academic challenge than the latest popular music album from an artist whose last hit featured an international K-pop star. Divided across four different movements and performed in 13 languages, we have a head-spinning classical-tinged album that delves into feminine mystery, spiritual ascent, and bodily change, frequently by way of the prism of different women saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a topic handled with raw openness elsewhere—is launched skyward here, carried by the lush presence of a major orchestra and input from an award-winning songwriter within a vast roll call of contributors. Its sheer daring alone makes the work of contemporary artists seem rather small.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux manages to avoid dry academic chin-stroking is nearly a miracle, and complete credit going to Rosalía. While it's not her first album to blend the past and the present, the scale feel far higher on Lux, with the tightrope walk far more pronounced. What really elevates her fourth release, outside of its multilayered tunes, dense arrangements, and engrained theatricality, is a core sense of joy. Similar to the legendary Björk during her peak, you find a wondrous quality to the vocalist's singing which sweeps you up in its whirlwind. Even when she is breaking your heart apart, you still want to be alongside her for the ride.
A Signature Example of Joy
This playful spirit shines clearly during the stirring piano-led song about a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for more than four minutes. Suddenly, everything drops silent, and we hear a gleeful giggle and a comment before a hilariously over-the-top orchestral crescendo thuds in with cartoonish impact. The track immediately shifts into the wild track featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a surprise appearance from none other than Björk.
"The magic of Lux is that the listener rarely quite understand—or even wish to know—what it is going to next."
Almost each track ends at a completely distinct point than where it started. A track explores the transient trappings of celebrity with a featherlight orchestration before disintegrating into electronic cacophony. Another, a cut echoing the artist's previous rhythmic work starts off moody and brooding, with menacing beats, before fluttering traditional rhythms and an angelic chorus arrive to soften the song's rough corners.
The Bridge Between Experiment & Accessibility
A key achievement of Lux is navigating the gap between radical innovation and mainstream appeal. It is little coincidence that it has achieved her highest-charting work to break into the upper reaches of major charts: at its core a collection of truly catchy hits. A song sung primarily in English builds around a refrain that feels to collect more and more infectious melodies as it spirals upward. This trick is echoed on a different powerful ballad that grows and constricts, intertwining layered tunes like an intricate tapestry.
- A dance-infused number seduces via its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and an anthemic chorus.
- Lyrically, it aligns the pop culture impact of other breakup anthems, lambasting a former lover described as an "emotional terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, akin to a fairy-tale character hiding a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a scoundrel / You've the podium of letdown."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul
This album represents popular music on a maximalist level, a hungry grasp for capital-A Art in an era of looming artificial sameness. It eschews self-absorption for sublime transcendence, crafting a dramatic drama that masterfully controls its own inherent excess. This is a deep well of buried treasure that takes patience to fully mine but doesn't feels like hard work. Where some big releases of the year felt like feasting on scraps, this record is a sumptuous banquet where the characters around the table, some intoxicated on sacred wine, flutter between discussions about historical figures, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking grief, and common gossip about hopeless men. It is a contemporary musical from pop's most restlessly inventive visionary.
