On the surface, this album may look closer to a challenging scholarly challenge rather than a new pop record by a musician who just had a last single featured an international K-pop icon. Broken into four separate sections and voiced in 13 tongues, this is a dizzying classical-tinged opus exploring female mystery, spiritual ascent, and corporal transformation, frequently via the lens of different female saints. The end of a love affair—a topic treated with grounded openness on another major 2025 album—is shot skyward here, carried by the lush presence of a major orchestra and contributions from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter among a long list of collaborators. The pure audacity by itself makes the work of other artists look quite laughable.
Rising Above Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux succeeds in avoid overly academic chin-stroking is nothing short of miraculous, and complete praise belonging to Rosalía. Although it's not the first time project to fuse the past and the present, its scale feel much greater on Lux, and the balancing act far more precarious. The element that truly elevates this fourth album, beyond its multilayered tunes, rich compositions, and engrained drama, is a core sense of fun. Similar to the legendary Björk at her peak, you find a wondrous sense to Rosalía's singing which sweeps you up in its whirlwind. Even when she is tearing your heart apart, the listener nevertheless desire to stay right there for the ride.
A Prime Moment of Exuberance
This exuberant energy comes forth brightly on a stirring Italian ballad inspired by Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a sorrowful whirlpool over more than four minutes. Then, everything falls away, to reveal there's a spontaneous giggle followed by a declaration prior to a hilariously exaggerated string surge thuds down with cartoonish impact. The track immediately shifts to the wild track featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo role from none other than Björk.
"The charm with this album is that you never exactly know—nor wish to know—what it is going next."
Nearly every track finishes at a completely distinct point from how it began. A track examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity over a delicate symphony before disintegrating in digital chaos. Elsewhere, a cut that recalls the artist's earlier rhythmic work starts off moody and sinister, featuring prowling beats, until sudden flamenco rhythms and a heavenly choir enter to smooth its rough corners.
The Bridge Between Art and Pop
A key balancing act of the album involves navigating the line between bold experimentation and mainstream accessibility. It is little surprise that the album has achieved the artist's highest-charting work to crack the Top 5 of key charts: its heart contains a collection of truly catchy pop songs. A song performed entirely in the English language builds on a chorus that feels to gather increasingly infectious melodies as it spirals skyward. That feat is echoed on another powerful track that expands and contracts, intertwining multiple tunes like a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused number seduces via its jaunty, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
- In its words, it aligns with pop culture honesty of contemporary breakup songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "psychological bully".
- Throughout these tracks, the vocals carry a sharp edge, akin to a fairy-tale character concealing a knife: "Gold medal in being a motherfucker / You have won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Feast for the Soul
This album represents popular music on a maximalist scale, a hungry reach for high artistry amid of looming AI-generated sameness. It rejects solipsism for sublime transcendence, creating a dramatic spectacle that masterfully controls its own inherent ridiculousness. This is a deep well of buried gems that requires patience to fully mine but doesn't feels like a chore. Where some major releases of 2025 seemed like a meager scraps, this record offers a sumptuous feast where the guests at it, some intoxicated on sacred drink, flit between conversations about ancient figures, the profound feeling of heartbreaking sadness, and common gossip about useless men. In essence, it's a modern-day musical from music's most restlessly inventive practitioner.
