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On the surface, this album could seem more like a challenging academic challenge than the latest popular music album by an artist whose previous hit featured an international pop star. Broken across four different movements and sung in thirteen languages, it is a head-spinning symphonic album investigating feminine mystique, religious transcendence, and bodily transformation, frequently through the prism of various saintly figures. The end of a relationship—a topic treated with grounded openness elsewhere—is launched upwards on this record, buoyed by the lush sound of a full orchestra and work from an award-winning composer among an extensive list of collaborators. Its sheer daring by itself makes the efforts of other pop stars look rather modest.

Rising Above Scholarly Exercise

The fact that Lux succeeds in avoid dry intellectual chin-stroking feels nothing short of miraculous, with full credit going to Rosalía. While this is not her first album to alchemize the past and modern styles, the ambitions are much greater here, and the balancing act more dramatic. The element that really raises her fourth release, beyond its multilayered tunes, dense compositions, and engrained drama, proves to be an essential spirit of fun. Similar to the legendary Björk during her peak, you find a captivating sense to the vocalist's singing that pulls you into its tornado. Even when she is tearing hearts apart, you still want to be alongside her for the journey.

A Signature Example of Joy

That exuberant energy shines brightly during a stirring Italian song inspired by a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched whirlpool over several minutes. Suddenly, everything drops silent, and we hear a spontaneous laugh followed by a declaration before a comically exaggerated orchestral surge crashes down like cartoonish impact. The song immediately shifts to the frenetic single featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo role from none other than herself.

"The magic with Lux is that you rarely exactly know—or even wish to predict—where it will go to next."

Almost each track ends in a totally distinct point from how it started. One moment explores the transient nature of fame over a delicate symphony before disintegrating in electronic chaos. Another, a song echoing her previous trap-infused work begins out dark and brooding, with prowling vocals, until fluttering traditional rhythms and a heavenly chorus arrive to smooth its rough edges.

The Balance Between Experiment & Accessibility

A key achievement on the album is straddling the line between radical experimentation and mainstream accessibility. It is little surprise that the album has become her highest-charting work to break into the Top 5 of key charts: at its core a collection of truly catchy pop songs. A song sung entirely in English builds on a chorus that feels to collect increasingly nagging hooks while it spirals upward. That feat is repeated by a different expansive ballad that expands and contracts, intertwining multiple tunes like a complex tapestry.

• A dance-infused song charms with its jaunty, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along hook.
• In its words, it shares the cultural honesty of other breakup songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "psychological bully".
• Throughout these tracks, the vocals have a painted-on edge, akin to a storybook figure concealing a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a scoundrel / You've won the trophy of letdown."

An Opulent Feast for the Ears

Lux represents pop on a maximalist scale, an ambitious reach for high artistry in an era of impending AI-generated blankness. It eschews solipsism for glorious elevation, crafting an over-the-top spectacle that masterfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. It is an abundant well of buried gems that takes patience to completely explore but never feels like a chore. While other major releases of the year seemed like a meager meal, Lux offers a sumptuous banquet where the guests at the table, perhaps tipsy on sacred wine, flutter between discussions about ancient saints, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering grief, and common gossip about useless men. It is a contemporary theatrical production from pop's most endlessly inventive visionary.