At first glance, Lux may look more like a difficult scholarly challenge than a new popular music project by an artist who just had a last single featured an international pop icon. Split across four different parts and performed in 13 tongues, we have a head-spinning classical-tinged work investigating female mystique, religious transcendence, and corporal transformation, often via the lens of various saintly figures. The dissolution of a romance—a topic handled with grounded openness elsewhere—is launched skyward on this record, buoyed by the constant presence of a major symphony orchestra and work from an award-winning composer within a long roll call of collaborators. The pure ambition by itself makes the efforts of other pop stars seem rather laughable.
Rising Above Academic Pretense
The fact that Lux manages to avoid overly intellectual posturing feels nothing short of a miracle, and full praise going to Rosalía. Although it's not the first time project to fuse historical sounds with modern styles, the stakes are far higher here, and the tightrope walk more pronounced. What really elevates her fourth release, outside of its complex tunes, rich compositions, and inherent drama, is an essential sense of playfulness. Similar to the legendary artist at her height, you find a wondrous sense to Rosalía's singing which sweeps the listener into its whirlwind. Even when she is breaking hearts apart, the listener still desire to stay alongside her for the ride.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
This playful energy comes forth brightly during the stirring piano-led ballad about a saint. It bathes in a sorrowful whirlpool over more than four moments. Then, all the music falls silent, and we hear a gleeful laugh and a declaration prior to a hilariously exaggerated string surge thuds in like cartoonish impact. The track immediately segues to the frenetic single driven by galloping strings, an imposing choir, and a cameo role from none other than Björk.
"The magic with this album lies in the listener never exactly understand—or even wish to predict—where you is going next."
Almost every song ends at a totally different place than how it started. One moment explores the fleeting nature of fame over a delicate symphony only to disintegrating in electronic cacophony. Elsewhere, a song that recalls her earlier rhythmic work begins out dark and brooding, with menacing vocals, before fluttering flamenco handclaps and a heavenly choir arrive to soften its jagged corners.
The Bridge Between Experiment and Pop
Another crucial achievement on Lux is straddling the gap between bold experimentation and mainstream accessibility. It is no coincidence that the album has become her highest-charting release to break into the upper reaches of key markets: its heart contains a collection of utterly catchy pop songs. A song performed entirely in English swells on a chorus that feels to gather increasingly infectious hooks as it spins upward. That trick gets repeated on a different expansive ballad that expands and contracts, weaving layered melodies like a complex weave.
- A waltz-like song seduces via its jaunty, theatrical flair and a chant-along hook.
- In its words, it aligns the pop culture impact of contemporary breakup songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "psychological terrorist".
- Across 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've won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Feast for the Ears
Lux represents pop on a maximalist level, an ambitious reach for capital-A Art in an era of looming AI-generated sameness. It rejects solipsism in favor of sublime transcendence, crafting a dramatic spectacle that skillfully controls its own inherent excess. This is a deep well of buried gems that requires time to fully mine but doesn't seem like hard work. Where other major releases of the year felt like feasting on meal, this record is a lavish banquet at which the characters at the table, perhaps tipsy on holy drink, flutter from conversations about ancient figures, the galvanizing feeling of soul-shattering grief, and shared gossip about useless men. It is a modern-day musical from music's most endlessly inventive practitioner.
