On the surface, this album could seem more like a difficult university challenge rather than a new popular music album from a musician who just had a last single featured a global pop star. Divided into 4 distinct parts and sung in 13 languages, it is a breathtaking classical-tinged work exploring feminine mystique, religious transcendence, and physical change, frequently via the lens of various saintly figures. The dissolution of a romance—a topic treated with raw honesty elsewhere—soars heavenward on this record, carried by the lush presence of a full orchestra and contributions from an award-winning composer among a vast roll call of contributors. The pure daring alone renders the efforts of contemporary pop stars seem quite modest.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux succeeds in transcend dry intellectual chin-stroking is nothing short of a miracle, and complete praise belonging to the artist. While it's not her first project to fuse the past with modern styles, the ambitions feel far higher on Lux, with the balancing act more dramatic. The element that truly elevates her fourth release, outside of its multilayered tunes, dense arrangements, and engrained drama, is an essential spirit of fun. Similar to the iconic artist at her height, you find a captivating quality to Rosalía's voice that pulls you up in its tornado. When she is breaking hearts apart, you nevertheless want to stay right there for the journey.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
That playful spirit shines brightly during a stunning Italian ballad about Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a string-drenched melancholy for more than four minutes. Then, all the music drops silent, to reveal there's a gleeful laugh followed by a comment before a hilariously exaggerated orchestral surge crashes down like cartoonish impact. The song then shifts into the wild single featuring racing strings, an imposing choral group, and a cameo appearance from the artist herself.
"The magic of Lux is that the listener never exactly know—nor want to predict—where you will go next."
Almost every song concludes at a totally distinct place from where it began. One moment examines the fleeting nature of fame over a featherlight orchestration only to disintegrating into digital cacophony. Elsewhere, a cut that recalls her earlier trap-infused style starts off dark and brooding, with menacing vocals, until sudden flamenco rhythms and a heavenly chorus enter to soften its jagged edges.
The Bridge Between Art and Pop
A key achievement of the album involves straddling the line between radical innovation and broad appeal. This is no surprise that it has achieved her first work to crack the Top 5 of major charts: at its core a suite of utterly catchy pop songs. A song performed primarily in the English language builds on a refrain that seems to collect more and more nagging hooks as it spins upward. This trick gets echoed by another expansive ballad that expands and contracts, intertwining multiple tunes as an intricate weave.
- A waltz-like number charms with its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along chorus.
- Lyrically, it shares with cultural impact of other heartbreak songs, lambasting a former lover described as an "psychological bully".
- Across these tracks, the vocals carry a sharp edge, like a fairy-tale figure hiding a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a motherfucker / You've the podium of letdown."
An Opulent Feast for the Ears
This album represents popular music on a maximalist level, a hungry grasp for capital-A Art in an era of impending AI-generated sameness. It eschews self-absorption for glorious transcendence, creating a dramatic drama that skillfully manages its inherent excess. This is a deep source of buried treasure that takes time to completely explore but doesn't feels like hard work. Where some major releases of 2025 seemed like a meager meal, this record offers a lavish feast where the characters at the table, some intoxicated on sacred wine, flutter from discussions about historical saints, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about useless men. In essence, it's a modern-day musical from music's most restlessly creative practitioner.
