Initially, Lux may look closer to a difficult scholarly challenge than a new pop project by a musician whose last single featured a global pop star. Split into 4 distinct movements and performed in thirteen languages, we have a dizzying orchestral-influenced opus investigating female mystery, religious transcendence, and physical transformation, often via the perspective of different women saints. The dissolution of a romance—a theme treated with grounded honesty elsewhere—soars skyward on this record, carried by the constant sound of a major orchestra and work from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter among an extensive roll call of collaborators. The pure daring alone makes the efforts of contemporary pop stars appear quite laughable.
Transcending Academic Exercise
That this album manages to escape overly intellectual posturing is almost a miracle, and full praise belonging to the artist. While it's not the first time album to alchemize the past and the present, its scale feel far higher on Lux, and the tightrope walk far more dramatic. What really raises this fourth release, beyond its complex tunes, dense arrangements, and inherent theatricality, is a core sense of playfulness. Much like the iconic Björk during her height, you find a captivating quality to Rosalía's singing which sweeps the listener up in its tornado. When she is tearing hearts in two, you still want to stay right there for the journey.
A Prime Moment of Exuberance
This exuberant energy comes forth brightly during the stirring Italian ballad inspired by a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched whirlpool for more than four moments. Suddenly, everything drops away, to reveal there's a spontaneous giggle followed by a comment before a hilariously over-the-top orchestral crescendo thuds in like cartoonish force. The song immediately shifts into the wild track driven by racing orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo role from the artist Björk.
"The charm with this album is that the listener rarely quite understand—or even wish to know—where you will go next."
Nearly each track finishes at a totally distinct point from where it began. One moment examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity over a delicate orchestration before collapsing into digital chaos. Another, a song that recalls the artist's previous trap-infused work starts off moody and brooding, with menacing vocals, before sudden traditional handclaps and a heavenly chorus arrive to smooth the song's rough corners.
The Bridge Of Art & Pop
A key achievement of the album is navigating the gap of bold innovation and broad accessibility. This is little coincidence that it has become her highest-charting work to break into the upper reaches of key charts: at its core a suite of truly catchy hits. A song sung primarily in English swells around a chorus that seems to gather more and more infectious melodies while it spirals upward. That feat gets echoed by another powerful track that grows and constricts, weaving layered melodies like a complex weave.
- A dance-infused number seduces via its jaunty, theatrical flair and a chant-along hook.
- In its words, it aligns the cultural honesty of other breakup songs, lambasting a former lover described as an "psychological bully".
- Across the album, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, akin to a fairy-tale figure hiding a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a motherfucker / You've the podium of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Ears
This album represents pop on a grand scale, an ambitious reach for capital-A Art in an era of looming artificial sameness. It eschews self-absorption in favor of sublime transcendence, creating an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully controls its inherent ridiculousness. This is a deep well of hidden gems that requires time to completely explore but never feels like hard work. Where other major releases of the year seemed like feasting on meal, this record offers a lavish banquet at which the guests around it, perhaps intoxicated on sacred wine, flutter between conversations about historical figures, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking sadness, and shared gossip about useless men. It is a modern-day musical from music's truly restlessly creative visionary.
