Coming from experimental reggaeton hit making “Motomami,” Spanish artist Rosalía released “Lux,” her fourth album continuing the theme of divinity and religion showed in her sophomore album “El Mal Querer,” but with an even deeper search of knowledge, cultures and standard.
With the release of the first single “Berghain” just a couple of days before the release of “Lux,” we saw the mastery and care Rosalía puts into every song. Opening a new era with the London Symphony Orchestra, Björk and Yves Tumor from a more mainstream artist could have been an extremely difficult performance, but it ended up with a song like no other and one of the highlights of the whole album, dwelling back to the skillfulness and outer-worldly talent from her academic experience at the Catalonia College of Music.
The Nov. 7 we saw a 15-track composition released on all streaming platforms, with the photo of Rosalía dressed modestly and embracing herself into a simple blue background. Included are heavy religious implications as well as her dyeing her own hair to simulate a halo on the top of her head, as well as causing social media to quickly go on flames about this new era.
When the track list was released, “Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti” stood very intensely with the title completely in Italian, a language Rosalía does not fully speak. But the positive surprise days later was the news that Rosalía will sing in 13 languages from Arabic, German, Japanese, Latin and more. This whole process took her around 1 year, as she kept going back to translators and help from native speakers, as well as developing her own curiosity and wondering how certain words sound in certain languages and following from there.
One of the highlights of the whole album is “La Yugular,”one of the most beautiful songs with a very poetic lyricism which also features the Arabic language mentioned beforehand. When giving an overall listen to the album, you feel as if though it doesn’t talk about only God or religion, but the large scale of divinity. The album opens with the lyrics of “Who could live between the two. First, I will love the world, and later I will love God,” and makes for a perfect introduction to a perfect album.
Another outstanding moment is the trilogy of the songs of Divinize, Porcelana and the mentioned earlier Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti. This part very beautifully connects with one another and ends in such a strong vocal performance by Rosalía, making for another demonstration of sophisticated opera. This contrasts strongly with the closer of the album “Magnolias” which while continuing with its softness, it quickly develops into intensity and becomes an unforgettable end.
Rosalía has always been the face of innovation and more importantly, popularizing new sounds to the music industry, but this latest work makes for something only someone with enough funds, skill and endless passion for their art, which will cement her as one of the greatest artist of our generation and one that will continue to be remembered for years to come. Not only did she decide to go on this more unpopular path but also opened the doors to general audiences allowing them to involve themselves in different music and sounds, achieving her biggest debut ever.
“Lux” has been worldly loved by both audiences and critics, and one of the only few criticisms is that it’s an album that does not follow a bit more of the “popular” side of her music, which achieved a 1B+ song in her latest work, but this is exactly what makes “Lux” important and special. Not every film is easily digestible, not every painting will bring you positive thoughts and not every song will be easily catchy, and this is what makes art beautiful. To evoke something in the person lucky enough to experience it, to tell a story and to create an impact is what makes people alive, and what people like Rosalía continue to strive towards.
“Lux” is available on every streaming platform, and I heavily recommend it to anyone reading.
