On the surface, Lux may look closer to a challenging university challenge rather than the latest pop album by an artist who just had a last hit featured an international pop icon. Broken across four distinct sections and voiced in thirteen tongues, it is a dizzying orchestral-influenced album that delves into female mystery, religious transcendence, and bodily transformation, frequently through the prism of various saintly figures. The dissolution of a relationship—a topic handled with grounded openness elsewhere—is launched heavenward on this record, carried by the lush presence of a major symphony orchestra and input from an award-winning composer among an extensive roll call of collaborators. The pure audacity by itself renders the work of contemporary artists seem quite laughable.
Rising Above Academic Exercise
The fact that this album manages to escape dry intellectual chin-stroking is nothing short of a miracle, with full praise belonging to Rosalía. While this is not her first project to blend the past and the present, the scale feel far greater on Lux, with the balancing act far more precarious. What truly elevates this fourth album, outside of its complex tunes, dense arrangements, and inherent drama, proves to be an essential spirit of fun. Much like the legendary artist during her height, there is a captivating quality to the vocalist's voice which sweeps the listener into its whirlwind. When she is breaking hearts apart, the listener still want to stay right there for the journey.
A Prime Moment of Exuberance
This playful spirit shines brightly during a stirring Italian ballad about Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a sorrowful whirlpool over more than four moments. Suddenly, everything drops away, to reveal there's a gleeful laugh and a comment prior to a hilariously exaggerated orchestral surge crashes down like cartoonish impact. The song immediately shifts into the frenetic track featuring racing strings, a powerful choir, and a cameo role from the artist herself.
"The magic with Lux is that the listener never quite know—or even wish to know—where you is going to next."
Almost every track concludes at a totally distinct point from where it started. A track explores the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a delicate symphony before disintegrating into electronic cacophony. Another, a cut echoing her earlier trap-infused work starts out moody and brooding, featuring prowling vocals, until sudden flamenco handclaps and a heavenly choir enter to smooth its jagged corners.
The Bridge Of Art and Pop
Another crucial achievement of Lux is straddling the line of radical innovation and broad appeal. This is no surprise that the album has achieved the artist's highest-charting work to break into the upper reaches of major markets: its heart contains a collection of utterly undeniable pop songs. One track performed entirely in the English language builds on a chorus that seems to collect increasingly infectious hooks while it spirals upward. This feat gets echoed by a different expansive ballad that grows and contracts, weaving multiple tunes as an intricate tapestry.
- A dance-infused song seduces with its jaunty, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along chorus.
- Lyrically, it shares with cultural impact of other heartbreak songs, eviscerating a former lover labeled an "psychological terrorist".
- Across the album, the singing have a painted-on edge, like a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You've the podium of letdown."
A Maximalist Feast for the Soul
Lux is popular music on a grand level, a hungry grasp for capital-A Art in an era of impending artificial blankness. It eschews self-absorption in favor of sublime elevation, crafting a dramatic drama that skillfully controls its inherent ridiculousness. It is a deep source of hidden gems that requires time to fully mine but doesn't feels like hard work. While some big pop albums of the year felt like feasting on meal, this record offers a sumptuous feast at which the guests at the table, perhaps intoxicated on sacred wine, flit from conversations about historical saints, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering grief, and common stories about hopeless men. It is a contemporary musical from music's truly endlessly creative visionary.
