On the surface, this album may look closer to an arduous scholarly challenge than a new popular music album from a musician whose previous hit featured an international K-pop icon. Divided across 4 separate parts and sung in thirteen languages, we have a dizzying classical-tinged work exploring feminine mystique, religious ascent, and corporal transformation, often through the lens of various saintly figures. The end of a romance—a topic treated with raw honesty elsewhere—soars upwards on this record, buoyed by the constant presence of a major symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter among an extensive roll call of contributors. The pure ambition by itself renders the efforts of other pop stars seem quite small.
Transcending Academic Exercise
That Lux manages to escape overly intellectual chin-stroking feels nothing short of miraculous, and sole credit belonging to Rosalía. While this is not her first project to alchemize historical sounds and modern styles, the stakes feel much greater on Lux, and the balancing act more pronounced. The element that really elevates this fourth release, beyond its complex tunes, dense compositions, and engrained theatricality, proves to be a core sense of fun. Much like the iconic artist at her height, you find a wondrous sense to the vocalist's singing which sweeps the listener into its whirlwind. When she is breaking your heart apart, you still desire to stay alongside her for the journey.
A Signature Moment of Exuberance
This exuberant energy shines brightly during the stunning piano-led ballad about a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for several moments. Then, all the music falls away, to reveal there's a spontaneous laugh followed by a comment before a hilariously over-the-top orchestral surge crashes down with cartoonish impact. The song then shifts to the wild track featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo role from none other than herself.
"The charm of Lux is that you rarely quite understand—nor want to predict—what it will go next."
Nearly every song finishes at a completely distinct point from where it started. One moment examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity over a featherlight orchestration only to disintegrating into digital chaos. Another, a song that recalls the artist's earlier rhythmic style starts off dark and sinister, featuring menacing vocals, before sudden traditional rhythms and an angelic choir arrive to smooth the song's rough corners.
The Balance Between Art and Pop
Another crucial achievement of the album is straddling the line between bold experimentation and broad appeal. It is little surprise that the album has achieved the artist's first work to break into the upper reaches of key charts: at its core a suite of truly undeniable pop songs. A song sung primarily in the English language swells on a chorus that seems to collect increasingly nagging melodies while it spirals skyward. This feat gets repeated on a different expansive ballad that grows and constricts, intertwining layered tunes like a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused song charms via its playful, theatrical flair and an anthemic chorus.
- Lyrically, it shares with cultural honesty of other heartbreak songs, eviscerating a former partner labeled an "psychological terrorist".
- Across the album, the vocals have a sharp edge, like a fairy-tale character concealing a blade: "Gold medal in being a scoundrel / You've won the trophy of disappointment."
An Opulent Banquet for the Ears
This album is pop on a maximalist scale, a hungry grasp for high artistry amid of looming artificial blankness. It eschews self-absorption for glorious transcendence, crafting an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully controls its built-in excess. This is an abundant well of buried treasure that takes patience to fully explore but doesn't seem like a chore. While other big pop albums of the year felt like feasting on scraps, this record is a lavish banquet at which the guests around it, some tipsy on holy drink, flutter between conversations about historical figures, the profound feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about hopeless partners. In essence, it's a contemporary theatrical production from pop's truly endlessly inventive visionary.
