On the surface, Lux may look closer to a challenging university challenge than the latest pop project from a musician who just had a previous single featured a global pop icon. Split across 4 distinct sections and voiced in 13 tongues, it is a head-spinning classical-tinged opus investigating feminine mystique, spiritual ascent, and corporal transformation, frequently through the perspective of different women saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a theme treated with grounded honesty on another major 2025 album—soars upwards on this record, carried by the lush sound of a major orchestra and input from an award-winning composer within an extensive roll call of collaborators. Its sheer audacity alone renders the efforts of contemporary artists seem quite laughable.
Rising Above Academic Exercise
That Lux succeeds in escape overly academic posturing is nothing short of a miracle, and full credit belonging to the artist. While this is not the first time album to alchemize the past with modern styles, its stakes are much greater on Lux, and the tightrope walk far more precarious. What truly elevates this fourth release, beyond its complex tunes, dense compositions, and inherent theatricality, proves to be a core sense of joy. Similar to the iconic artist at her peak, you find a captivating quality to Rosalía's voice which sweeps the listener up in its whirlwind. When she's tearing your heart in two, you nevertheless want to be alongside her for the journey.
A Prime Moment of Joy
That exuberant energy shines brightly during a stunning Italian song inspired by Saint Clare. It bathes in a sorrowful whirlpool for several minutes. Suddenly, everything drops silent, and there's a gleeful laugh followed by a comment before a hilariously over-the-top orchestral crescendo thuds in with cartoonish force. The song immediately segues into the wild track featuring galloping strings, a powerful choral group, and a cameo appearance from the artist herself.
"The charm of Lux lies in the listener never exactly know—or even want to predict—what it will go next."
Nearly every song finishes in a completely different place from where it started. One moment examines the transient nature of fame with a delicate symphony only to collapsing in digital cacophony. Another, a song echoing her previous rhythmic work begins off dark and sinister, featuring prowling vocals, until sudden traditional handclaps and a heavenly choir enter to soften its jagged edges.
The Bridge Between Experiment and Accessibility
A key balancing act of the album is straddling the line of bold experimentation and mainstream accessibility. This is little coincidence that the album has achieved the artist's first release to crack the upper reaches of major markets: at its core a collection of utterly undeniable pop songs. One track sung entirely in the English language swells on a refrain that feels to gather increasingly infectious melodies as it spins upward. That feat is echoed by a different expansive ballad that grows and contracts, weaving multiple tunes as an intricate weave.
- A dance-infused song seduces via its jaunty, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
- In its words, it aligns with cultural honesty of contemporary breakup songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "emotional bully".
- Across these tracks, the singing carry a sharp smile, like a storybook character concealing a blade: "Top prize in acting like a motherfucker / You've won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Ears
This album is pop on a maximalist scale, a hungry reach for high artistry amid of impending artificial blankness. It rejects self-absorption for glorious transcendence, creating an over-the-top spectacle that masterfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. This is a deep source of hidden gems that requires patience to completely mine but never seem like hard work. While other big pop albums of 2025 felt like feasting on meal, this record offers a lavish feast at which the guests around the table, perhaps intoxicated on sacred wine, flit between conversations about historical figures, the profound sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and common gossip about useless partners. In essence, it's a modern-day musical from pop's truly endlessly inventive practitioner.
