Initially, this album may look closer to a challenging scholarly challenge rather than a new popular music project from an artist who just had a previous single was a collaboration with a global pop star. Broken across four different movements and performed in thirteen tongues, we have a dizzying classical-tinged work exploring female mystique, spiritual ascent, and physical transformation, often via the perspective of various saintly figures. The dissolution of a love affair—a theme handled with raw honesty on another major 2025 album—is launched heavenward on this record, carried by the constant sound of a major orchestra and contributions from an award-winning composer within a long list of contributors. The pure audacity by itself makes the efforts of contemporary artists seem rather small.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux succeeds in transcend overly academic posturing feels nearly a miracle, and full praise going to the artist. Although this is not the first time project to alchemize historical sounds and the present, its scale feel much greater on Lux, and the balancing act more pronounced. What really raises this fourth album, beyond its multilayered tunes, dense arrangements, and inherent theatricality, proves to be an essential sense of playfulness. Similar to the iconic artist during her height, there is a wondrous sense to Rosalía's singing that pulls you into its tornado. When she's breaking your heart apart, the listener still desire to stay right there for the journey.
A Prime Example of Joy
That exuberant energy comes forth clearly on the stunning Italian song inspired by Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a sorrowful whirlpool over more than four moments. Then, everything drops silent, and there's a gleeful laugh and a declaration prior to a hilariously exaggerated string crescendo thuds down like cartoonish impact. The song then segues to the wild track featuring racing orchestration, an imposing choral group, and a cameo role from the artist herself.
"The charm with Lux lies in you rarely exactly know—nor want to predict—where you will go to next."
Nearly each track finishes at a completely different point from how it began. A track explores the transient nature of celebrity over a featherlight symphony before collapsing into digital cacophony. Elsewhere, a song that recalls the artist's previous trap-infused style starts out dark and sinister, featuring prowling beats, before sudden traditional rhythms and a heavenly choir enter to smooth the song's rough edges.
The Balance Of Experiment and Pop
Another crucial balancing act on the album involves straddling the gap of radical innovation and mainstream accessibility. It is little surprise that the album has become her first work to crack the upper reaches of key charts: its heart contains a suite of truly undeniable pop songs. One track performed entirely in English builds around a refrain that feels to collect increasingly infectious melodies as it spins upward. That feat gets echoed on another expansive ballad that expands and constricts, intertwining multiple tunes as a complex weave.
- A dance-infused number seduces via its jaunty, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along chorus.
- In its words, it shares the cultural impact of contemporary heartbreak anthems, eviscerating a former partner labeled an "psychological terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the vocals have a painted-on edge, akin to a fairy-tale character hiding a blade: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You have the podium of disappointment."
An Opulent Banquet for the Ears
Lux represents popular music on a maximalist scale, a hungry grasp for capital-A artistry in an era of looming artificial blankness. It eschews self-absorption for sublime transcendence, crafting a dramatic drama that skillfully manages its inherent excess. It is a deep source of hidden gems that takes time to fully explore but never feels like hard work. Where some major pop albums of the year seemed like a meager meal, this record is a sumptuous banquet at which the characters around the table, some tipsy on sacred drink, flutter between conversations about historical saints, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about hopeless men. It is a modern-day theatrical production from pop's truly endlessly inventive practitioner.
