🔗 Share this article

Initially, Lux may look closer to a challenging scholarly quiz rather than a new popular music project from an artist who just had a previous single featured a global K-pop star. Broken into 4 different sections and sung in thirteen languages, it is a dizzying classical-tinged album exploring feminine mystique, religious transcendence, and bodily transformation, often via the prism of different saintly figures. The dissolution of a love affair—a topic treated with raw openness elsewhere—is launched upwards here, carried by the constant presence of a major orchestra and work from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter among an extensive roll call of collaborators. The pure audacity alone makes the work of contemporary pop stars seem quite small.

Transcending Academic Exercise

That Lux manages to transcend overly intellectual chin-stroking is nearly miraculous, with sole praise going to the artist. Although this is not the first time project to blend historical sounds with the present, its ambitions feel much higher here, and the tightrope walk more precarious. What really raises this fourth album, beyond its multilayered tunes, rich arrangements, and inherent theatricality, is an essential spirit of joy. Similar to the legendary artist during her peak, you find a wondrous quality to Rosalía's voice which sweeps the listener up in its tornado. Even when she is tearing hearts apart, the listener nevertheless want to stay alongside her for the journey.

A Prime Moment of Joy

This exuberant energy shines brightly on the stunning Italian ballad about a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy over several minutes. Suddenly, everything falls silent, to reveal we hear a spontaneous giggle and a comment prior to a hilariously exaggerated string surge crashes down with cartoonish force. The track then shifts into the frenetic single driven by galloping strings, an imposing choir, and a surprise appearance from the artist herself.

"The magic with Lux lies in you rarely quite understand—nor wish to predict—where it will go to next."

Almost every track ends at a completely distinct point from how it started. One moment explores the transient trappings of celebrity over a delicate orchestration only to disintegrating into electronic chaos. Another, a cut that recalls the artist's earlier rhythmic work starts off moody and sinister, featuring prowling vocals, before sudden traditional handclaps and an angelic chorus arrive to smooth the song's rough edges.

The Balance Between Experiment and Accessibility

A key achievement on the album is navigating the gap between bold experimentation and broad appeal. It is little coincidence that it has achieved the artist's first work to crack the Top 5 of key charts: its heart contains a suite of utterly catchy pop songs. A song performed primarily in English swells around a refrain that feels to gather more and more infectious hooks as it spins upward. This feat is echoed by another expansive track that grows and contracts, intertwining multiple melodies as a complex weave.

• A dance-infused song charms via its playful, theatrical flair and an anthemic chorus.
• In its words, it shares the pop culture honesty of contemporary heartbreak anthems, lambasting an ex- lover labeled an "psychological terrorist".
• Across the album, the vocals carry a sharp edge, like a fairy-tale character hiding a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a scoundrel / You have won the trophy of letdown."

A Maximalist Feast for the Soul

This album is pop on a grand level, a hungry grasp for high artistry amid of impending artificial blankness. It eschews solipsism for glorious transcendence, creating an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully controls its own inherent ridiculousness. This is an abundant source of buried treasure that requires time to completely explore but never seem like hard work. While other big pop albums of the year felt like a meager scraps, this record offers a sumptuous feast where the characters at it, some intoxicated on sacred wine, flit from discussions about historical saints, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and shared stories about useless men. In essence, it's a contemporary musical from pop's most endlessly creative practitioner.