🔗 Share this article

On the surface, this album may look closer to a difficult university examination than a new popular music project by an artist whose last single featured a global K-pop icon. Split into four separate parts and performed in thirteen tongues, it is a dizzying orchestral-influenced work investigating female mystique, spiritual transcendence, and corporal change, often via the perspective of various women saints. The end of a romance—a topic handled with raw openness on another major 2025 album—soars skyward here, carried by the lush sound of a full orchestra and input from an award-winning composer among a long roll call of contributors. Its sheer daring alone makes the efforts of contemporary pop stars look rather laughable.

Rising Above Academic Exercise

The fact that this album succeeds in avoid dry intellectual chin-stroking is nothing short of miraculous, and full praise going to Rosalía. While it's not her first project to fuse historical sounds and the present, the scale are far greater on Lux, with the tightrope walk far more dramatic. What really elevates this fourth album, outside of its complex melodies, dense compositions, and inherent theatricality, is a core spirit of playfulness. Much like the iconic Björk during her peak, you find a wondrous quality to Rosalía's voice that pulls the listener into its whirlwind. Even when she's breaking your heart apart, the listener nevertheless want to be alongside her through the journey.

A Prime Moment of Joy

This playful energy shines clearly on the stunning Italian song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy over several minutes. Then, everything drops away, to reveal we hear a gleeful laugh followed by a declaration before a comically over-the-top orchestral surge crashes down with cartoonish force. The song then segues into the wild single driven by racing strings, a powerful choir, and a cameo role from none other than herself.

"The charm with Lux lies in the listener rarely quite understand—or even wish to know—where you will go next."

Almost every song finishes at a completely different place from how it began. One moment examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity over a featherlight orchestration only to disintegrating into digital cacophony. Another, a song that recalls the artist's previous trap-infused style begins out dark and sinister, with prowling vocals, until sudden flamenco handclaps and an angelic chorus arrive to soften the song's rough edges.

The Balance Of Experiment and Accessibility

Another crucial achievement on the album is navigating the line of bold innovation and broad accessibility. This is no surprise that the album has become her first release to crack the Top 5 of key charts: its heart contains a collection of truly catchy hits. A song sung primarily in the English language swells around a refrain that feels to gather increasingly infectious hooks as it spirals skyward. That feat is repeated on another powerful track that grows and contracts, intertwining multiple tunes as an intricate tapestry.

• A waltz-like song seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
• Lyrically, it shares with pop culture honesty of other heartbreak songs, lambasting a former lover described as an "psychological terrorist".
• Throughout these tracks, the singing have a sharp smile, like a storybook figure hiding a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a motherfucker / You have won the trophy of letdown."

A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul

Lux represents popular music on a maximalist scale, an ambitious reach for capital-A Art in an era of impending AI-generated sameness. It eschews self-absorption for sublime transcendence, creating an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully controls its inherent ridiculousness. It is a deep well of buried gems that requires time to fully explore but doesn't feels like hard work. While other major pop albums of 2025 seemed like a meager scraps, Lux offers a sumptuous banquet at which the guests around the table, some intoxicated on holy wine, flit from discussions about historical figures, the profound feeling of heartbreaking sadness, and common stories about useless partners. In essence, it's a contemporary musical from pop's most endlessly creative practitioner.