On the surface, this work may look more like an arduous university examination rather than a new popular music album from an artist whose last hit was a collaboration with an international pop icon. Divided across four distinct sections and sung in 13 languages, we have a head-spinning orchestral-influenced album that delves into female mystique, spiritual ascent, and bodily change, often through the prism of different women saints. The end of a romance—a topic handled with raw openness elsewhere—is launched heavenward here, carried by the constant presence of a major orchestra and contributions from an award-winning songwriter among an extensive list of contributors. The pure daring alone renders the work of contemporary artists look rather modest.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that this album manages to escape overly academic posturing is nearly a miracle, and full praise going to the artist. While this is not the first time project to fuse the past with the present, its ambitions are much greater on Lux, and the tightrope walk far more precarious. What really raises this fourth album, beyond its complex melodies, rich arrangements, and engrained theatricality, is a core spirit of joy. Similar to the legendary Björk during her height, you find a captivating quality to Rosalía's voice which sweeps you up in its whirlwind. When she's tearing your heart in two, the listener still want to stay right there for the ride.
A Signature Example of Exuberance
That exuberant spirit shines clearly during the stunning Italian song about a saint. It luxuriates in a sorrowful melancholy over more than four moments. Then, everything drops silent, and there's a gleeful giggle and a comment prior to a hilariously over-the-top string surge thuds in with cartoonish impact. The track immediately segues into the frenetic single driven by racing orchestration, a powerful choir, and a surprise role from none other than Björk.
"The charm of this album is that the listener rarely exactly understand—or even wish to predict—what it will go to next."
Almost every track ends in a totally distinct point from where it began. A track examines the fleeting nature of celebrity with a delicate orchestration only to disintegrating into digital cacophony. Another, a song echoing her earlier rhythmic style starts out dark and sinister, featuring prowling beats, before sudden traditional handclaps and an angelic chorus arrive to soften its rough corners.
The Bridge Between Art and Accessibility
A key achievement on the album involves navigating the line of radical experimentation and broad appeal. It is little coincidence that the album has become the artist's first release to crack the upper reaches of major markets: at its core a collection of truly catchy hits. A song sung primarily in the English language swells on a chorus that feels to collect increasingly infectious hooks while it spirals upward. This feat gets echoed on a different expansive track that expands and contracts, intertwining layered tunes like a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused song seduces via its jaunty, Disney-adjacent drama and an anthemic hook.
- In its words, it shares the cultural honesty of contemporary heartbreak songs, lambasting a former partner described as an "emotional bully".
- Across these tracks, the singing have a painted-on edge, akin to a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You've the podium of disappointment."
A Maximalist Feast for the Soul
This album is pop on a grand scale, a hungry grasp for high Art amid of impending artificial sameness. It eschews solipsism in favor of glorious transcendence, creating a dramatic drama that skillfully controls its built-in excess. This is an abundant well of hidden gems that requires time to completely mine but doesn't feels like a chore. Where some big releases of the year seemed like a meager scraps, this record is a lavish feast where the guests at the table, some intoxicated on sacred drink, flit between conversations about ancient figures, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common gossip about useless men. It is a contemporary theatrical production from pop's most restlessly inventive visionary.
