At first glance, Lux may look closer to an arduous scholarly quiz than a new popular music record from an artist whose previous single featured a global K-pop star. Split into four different sections and voiced in thirteen tongues, it is a head-spinning orchestral-influenced opus that delves into female mystique, spiritual transcendence, and physical change, often via the lens of different women saints. The end of a relationship—a theme treated with grounded honesty on another major 2025 album—soars upwards on this record, supported by the lush presence of a major symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning composer among a vast roll call of collaborators. The pure ambition by itself makes the work of other pop stars appear rather laughable.
Rising Above Scholarly Exercise
The fact that this album manages to avoid dry intellectual chin-stroking is nearly miraculous, with sole credit belonging to Rosalía. While it's not the first time album to alchemize historical sounds and the present, its ambitions are far higher on Lux, with the balancing act more precarious. The element that truly raises this fourth album, outside of its complex melodies, dense compositions, and engrained theatricality, is an essential spirit of playfulness. Similar to the iconic artist during her height, you find a wondrous quality to Rosalía's singing that pulls you into its tornado. Even when she's breaking your heart in two, the listener nevertheless desire to stay right there for the journey.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
This exuberant spirit comes forth brightly during a stirring Italian ballad inspired by Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a sorrowful melancholy over more than four moments. Suddenly, everything drops away, to reveal we hear a gleeful giggle followed by a comment prior to a comically over-the-top string crescendo thuds in like comedic impact. The track immediately shifts to the wild track driven by racing orchestration, an imposing choral group, and a cameo appearance from the artist herself.
"The magic of Lux is that you never quite understand—nor wish to predict—what it will go next."
Almost every song finishes at a completely different place than how it started. A track explores the fleeting trappings of fame over a featherlight symphony before collapsing into digital cacophony. Another, a cut echoing the artist's earlier trap-infused work begins out moody and brooding, with menacing beats, before fluttering flamenco handclaps and an angelic choir enter to soften the song's rough corners.
The Balance Between Experiment and Accessibility
A key achievement on Lux is navigating the line between radical experimentation and mainstream appeal. It is no surprise that the album has achieved the artist's highest-charting work to crack the Top 5 of key markets: at its core a suite of truly undeniable hits. A song performed entirely in the English language swells around a refrain that feels to gather more and more infectious hooks while it spirals upward. This feat is repeated on a different expansive track that grows and contracts, intertwining multiple melodies like a complex weave.
- A waltz-like number charms via its jaunty, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along hook.
- In its words, it shares with cultural honesty of other heartbreak anthems, eviscerating a former partner labeled an "emotional bully".
- Across the album, the vocals have a sharp edge, akin to a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in acting like a motherfucker / You have the podium of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul
Lux represents popular music on a grand scale, an ambitious grasp for capital-A Art amid of looming AI-generated blankness. It eschews solipsism in favor of sublime elevation, creating an over-the-top drama that masterfully controls its own inherent excess. This is an abundant well of buried gems that requires patience to completely mine but doesn't seem like hard work. Where some big pop albums of the year felt like a meager scraps, this record is a lavish banquet where the guests around the table, some intoxicated on holy drink, flutter from conversations about ancient figures, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about hopeless men. It is a modern-day musical from pop's most endlessly creative visionary.
