Let's not beat around the bush: the music of these years generally sucks. Except for a few ambitious romantics, it is monstrously boring. It lacks imagination, dimension, aspiration to greatness. Everything is normal, average, sufficient. The new one next big thing of the next Spotify playlist sounds like yesterday's, and like tomorrow's. Time flows in circles, trapping us. Around this sonorous comfort zone of little-and-nothing, the apocalypse. Those who try escape routes go back into history, camping in the past. We have forgotten the future. The future is over.
Maxwell Maltz in 1960 hypothesized the “21 day theory”, the time needed to develop a habit. The new studies, however, considered the good Maltz too optimistic, moving the bar to 66. So what happens if we listen to mediocre music for 365 days? And what happens if we multiply this number by, I don't know, 5-10 years? It happens that we are no longer used to thinking that we can – and must, want – demand better music than that which is served to us in no particular order by: artists, record companies, streaming platforms.
Luckily, however, once a year, but sometimes even less, a record comes out that makes us think that perhaps salvation (yes, the musical one but also the divine one) exists. That there is another time beyond this circular time. And when it happens, in the end, we are surprised. As with Lux of Rosalía. But why are we surprised if a pop star tries to do something different from the norm?
We are surprised because mediocrity is a virus worse than many pandemics. It creeps in, odorless and tasteless, infecting our way of thinking, of looking at life, beauty, art. And in a historical era where even science is questioned by the Middle Ages of thought, when an artist discovers himself immune to this littleness, we – fools – are amazed.
Music is an act of faith. And Rosalía, in Luxtake this concept literally. Inspired by the reading of hagiographies and by figures of saints such as Teresa of Avila, Olga of Kiev, Santa Rosalia of Palermo, the 15 tracks that make up the album (18 in the physical version), are a dialogue between the Catalan artist and something bigger, which here can have different names: Luce, Dio, Undibel (“Lord” in the gypsy language Caló). It's the most ambitious album of the pop star's career, and probably the most ambitious in pop in a long time.
Lux it is built on orchestral storms (guaranteed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daníel Bjarnason, with arrangements by Caroline Shaw and Angélica Negrón), dynamic leaps, vocal explosions. Is it pop? No and yes. No, in the sense that nothing in pop sounds Lux. Yes, in the sense that Rosalía herself tried to explain in the pre-publication interviews: everything is filtered and readable even for those who know nothing about classical music, flamenco, opera. “I know I'm asking a lot of the public with this album,” he said in pre-release interviews. But, let's go back to the starting point: why should an artist ask for little? Why should he treat us like emotional illiterates who cannot understand the beauty, the grandeur, the ambition of an album? We are not, after all, talking about quantum physics. But of emotions. Banal, True?but damn true.
Lux it is a record that develops in a verticality that Rosalía herself sings in the introductory part Sex, Violence, and Llantas: “How wonderful it would be to leave this Earth, go to Heaven and then return to Earth.” It is this earthly-divine dualism that creates the tension that manages to hold us in this hour of beautiful, inspired music. Rosalía recognizes her limitations (“I'm not a saint, but I feel blessed,” she specifies in Relic), entrusting music with the ability to create a bridge with the otherworldly. “Through my body you can see the light,” he recites in Divinize. But it is the orchestral and lexical climax of the last verse of The yugular to resolve the conflict: the light is within us.
I fit into the world
And the world fits into me
I occupy the world
And the world occupies me
I fit into a haiku
And a haiku occupies a country
A country fits into a sliver
A sliver occupies the entire galaxy
The entire galaxy fits into a drop of saliva
A drop of saliva occupies Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue fits into a piercing
A piercing occupies a pyramid
And a pyramid fits into a glass of milk
And a glass of milk occupies an army
And an army fits into a golf ball
And a golf ball occupies the Titanic
Titanic fits into a lipstick
A lipstick occupies the sky
The sky is the thorn
A thorn occupies a continent
And a continent does not fit into Him
But He enters my chest
And my chest contains His love
And in His love, I want to lose myself
Lux it is as big as a continent, but at the same time it can fit inside us. In its 13 languages, in its entire splendid piece in Italian (My Christ cries diamondsapparently inspired by Pavarotti's maternal listening), in his imperious use of the orchestra and classical music (in addition to the Portuguese feud, Mexican music, flamenco), in the featuring of Björk and Yves Tumor, in the collaborations with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk and Pharrell. Like the previous ones The evil querer And Motomami, Lux rewrites the canons of pop, transforming it into a playing field where genres, languages and languages are only tools that the artist has at his disposal to shape his own ideas freely. Lux it is like love, like God, like everything that has the power to be infinite: it has a dimension to which we can only surrender to accept its beauty. It is moving, like any act of faith, like any masterpiece.
Rosalía, with a record of this kind that doesn't flirt with the charts, that doesn't propose winning formulas, that doesn't even mention widely consumed genres like reggaeton, had (and has) only something to lose. In a historical period where everyone limits themselves to their homework, where the fear of taking risks is superior to the artistic need to try, escape, escape from the status quo of the playlist algorithm, Rosalía once again does what she wants. It's David Bowie, David Byrne, Kanye West, Patty Smith (whom he mentions at the end of The yugular). And like all greats, for many, it will be too much. It will be wrong. Sometimes shaking off mediocrity is really complex.
Lux it is gigantic with its choral hurricanes, its stormy strings, its lyrics with the odor of sanctity, but it is also made of very small things like the bells in the distance of Magnoliasor the stolen laugh that closes My Christ cries diamonds. The boredom of pop around Rosalía risks discouraging those who are no longer used to such rich listening. But this is what an artist must aim for: never limit herself.
We leave it here, for the future: Lux it's the album of the year, Rosalía the pop star of the decade.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
