At first glance, Lux might appear more like a challenging university examination than the latest popular music record by a musician whose last single featured a global K-pop star. Divided across four different parts and performed in 13 languages, we have a dizzying symphonic work investigating female mystery, spiritual transcendence, and bodily change, often via the perspective of various female saints. The dissolution of a relationship—a theme treated with raw honesty on another major 2025 album—is launched upwards here, carried by the constant presence of a major symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning composer within a vast roll call of collaborators. Its sheer daring alone renders the efforts of contemporary artists seem rather small.
Transcending Scholarly Pretense
The fact that this album manages to avoid overly academic chin-stroking feels almost a miracle, with complete credit going to Rosalía. While this is not her first album to alchemize the past with modern styles, the scale feel much higher on Lux, and the tightrope walk far more pronounced. What truly elevates this fourth release, beyond its complex melodies, dense arrangements, and inherent theatricality, is a core sense of joy. Similar to the legendary Björk at her height, you find a captivating quality to the vocalist's voice that pulls you up in its whirlwind. Even when she is breaking hearts in two, you still desire to be alongside her through the journey.
A Signature Example of Exuberance
That exuberant energy shines brightly on a stunning Italian ballad inspired by Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy over more than four minutes. Then, all the music falls away, to reveal there's a gleeful giggle and a comment prior to a hilariously over-the-top string surge crashes in with cartoonish force. The song then segues to the wild track featuring racing strings, an imposing choral group, and a surprise appearance from the artist Björk.
"The magic with this album is that the listener never exactly understand—nor want to predict—what it is going next."
Nearly each song ends in a totally distinct point than where it began. A track explores the fleeting trappings of fame over a delicate orchestration before collapsing into digital chaos. Another, a song that recalls the artist's previous trap-infused work starts out dark and sinister, with prowling beats, before sudden traditional rhythms and a heavenly choir arrive to soften its jagged corners.
The Balance Of Art and Accessibility
A key balancing act on Lux is straddling the gap of radical innovation and broad appeal. It is little surprise that the album has become the artist's first work to crack the upper reaches of key markets: at its core a collection of utterly catchy pop songs. A song performed primarily in the English language builds on a chorus that seems to collect more and more nagging hooks as it spins upward. That trick gets repeated by another expansive track that grows and constricts, intertwining layered melodies as a complex weave.
- A waltz-like number seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and an anthemic hook.
- In its words, it aligns the pop culture impact of other breakup songs, eviscerating a former lover described as an "emotional terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the singing carry a sharp smile, like a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in being a scoundrel / You have the podium of letdown."
An Opulent Feast for the Soul
This album represents pop on a maximalist scale, an ambitious grasp for high Art in an era of looming AI-generated blankness. It rejects self-absorption in favor of glorious transcendence, crafting an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully manages its own built-in ridiculousness. It is a deep well of buried gems that takes patience to fully mine but doesn't feels like hard work. Where other major pop albums of 2025 seemed like feasting on scraps, Lux offers a sumptuous banquet at which the characters around it, some tipsy on sacred drink, flutter between discussions about ancient figures, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and shared gossip about useless men. It is a contemporary theatrical production from pop's most restlessly creative visionary.
