To promote LuxRosalía did a TikTok live in her car, speeding through the wet streets of Madrid in the middle of the night, shooting at full volume The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart and greeting fans along the way to Plaza Callao. Such a moment would usually be banal, almost inconsequential, yet those few seconds – a pop star behind the wheel going through messy intersections with one of music's most immortal compositions as the soundtrack – perfectly encapsulate the ethos and spirit of her masterful new album.
Let's get one thing straight: Lux it sounds like nothing else in music today. It's a record that no other pop star could have made. Rosalía is now pop's most provocative agent of chaos, having released radical projects such as The evil quererin which he played with the traditions of flamenco and the languages of pop, and Motomamian exploration of femininity through edgy production and reggaeton beats. Lux is even more surprising: full of history and the result of studies that allow her to intertwine classical music, operatic references and 14 different languages into a wonderful and lacerating whole, which has the flavor of a timeless work of art.
As in everything Rosalía does, too Lux it is already surrounded by controversy and discussion. The first single, Berghaina baroque spectacle built on a pounding organ, dramatic choir, operatic voices in German and cameos from Björk and Yves Tumor, divided classical music audiences: Many were quick to dismiss Rosalía's experiment as kitsch. But Rosalía has never been a purist, her goal has always been to capture an emotion using whatever tools she had at her disposal. And she has many instruments: she is a musician who studied at the conservatory – she studied flamenco singing at the Catalonia College of Music (ESMUC) in Barcelona, which usually admits only one student per year – with a background that goes from Chopin to Ella Fitzgerald. It also has a rebellious soul and part of the irreverent charm of Lux lies precisely in this shock: Rosalía draws from the masters, while remaining very far from a classic album. It's Mozart with the attitude baddieBach with a joint in his hand.
The album works because each song is deeply thought out, tied to deep questions about what we're really doing here. Rosalía faces pain and loss, anger and mourning, sex and desire, love and devotion, in an attempt to better understand who she is, how she loves and what spiritual forces move her. Right from the start, with the dramatic piano chords that open Sex, Violence, and Llantasseeks his place in this world and in the one that comes after: “How beautiful it would be to live between the two worlds,” he sings. “First I will love the world / then I will love God”.
Lux is divided into four sections, or movements, in which Rosalía runs in search of herself and God in a chaotic world. In the poignant string orchestration of Relic he reflects on everything he has lost – his faith, his smile, a friend – traveling from country to country until he understands that he is a person who loves giving everything, despite the pain he felt: “But my heart was never mine / I always give it away / take a piece of me / keep it for when I'm not there”.
In Focu 'ranni Rosalía faces anger and broken promises (the song alludes to a marriage that never took place) before declaring: “I only belong to myself and to my freedom.” In The pearlinstead, smashes idols and targets a narcissistic man (“a national heartthrob, emotional terrorist, world-class disaster”) along with the singer of Mexican music Yahritza. But the most touching moments are those that contain personal revelations like Divinizeprobably the pinnacle of the album. Over a carpet of glittering strings and commanding production, Rosalía shifts from Catalan to English and lays herself completely bare: “Hurt me and I'll swallow my pride / I know I was born to deify.”
The ending is sad: Rosalía imagines her own coffin, adorned with magnolias. “I come from the stars, but today I return to dust to return to them” he sings with a light echo that envelops his voice like a halo. At that point Lux has closed, the curtain has fallen and the listener has no choice but to remain silent to find himself inside a work as transformative, intense and maximalist as life itself.
From Rolling Stone US.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
