Our Premier Record of 2025: The Artist's Lux Secures the Top Place.

At first glance, Lux could seem closer to a difficult scholarly challenge than a new pop project by a musician whose previous single was a collaboration with an international pop star. Broken across 4 separate movements and voiced in thirteen tongues, we have a breathtaking orchestral-influenced work investigating female mystery, spiritual transcendence, and bodily transformation, frequently via the lens of different saintly figures. The dissolution of a relationship—a theme handled with raw openness on another major 2025 album—is shot upwards on this record, carried by the lush sound of a major symphony orchestra and contributions from an award-winning songwriter among a long roll call of collaborators. The pure audacity by itself makes the work of contemporary artists look rather small.

Rising Above Scholarly Exercise

That this album manages to avoid dry academic posturing is almost miraculous, with full praise going to Rosalía. Although this is not the first time album to blend the past and modern styles, the ambitions feel much higher here, and the tightrope walk more dramatic. What truly raises this fourth release, outside of its complex tunes, dense compositions, and engrained theatricality, proves to be a core sense of joy. Much like the iconic artist during her height, you find a wondrous quality to Rosalía's singing which sweeps the listener up in its tornado. Even when she's tearing hearts apart, the listener nevertheless want to be alongside her through the ride.

A Prime Moment of Joy

This exuberant spirit comes forth brightly during the stunning piano-led song inspired by a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for more than four minutes. Then, everything falls away, to reveal there's a spontaneous laugh followed by a comment before a hilariously over-the-top string crescendo crashes down with cartoonish impact. The track then segues into the wild single driven by galloping orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo role from none other than Björk.

"The magic with Lux is that the listener rarely quite understand—nor want to know—what it is going next."

Nearly every track finishes in a completely different place from how it started. One moment examines the fleeting nature of celebrity over a featherlight orchestration before disintegrating in electronic cacophony. Another, a cut echoing the artist's previous trap-infused work begins out dark and sinister, featuring prowling beats, until fluttering flamenco rhythms and a heavenly chorus arrive to smooth the song's jagged edges.

The Balance Of Art & Accessibility

A key achievement on the album is straddling the line between radical innovation and broad accessibility. This is little coincidence that it has achieved the artist's first release to break into the Top 5 of major markets: its heart contains a suite of utterly undeniable pop songs. A song performed primarily in the English language swells around a refrain that seems to gather increasingly infectious hooks while it spirals upward. This feat gets repeated on a different powerful track that expands and constricts, intertwining multiple melodies as an intricate tapestry.

• A waltz-like number seduces via its playful, theatrical flair and an anthemic chorus.
• Lyrically, it shares with pop culture honesty of contemporary breakup anthems, lambasting a former lover described as an "psychological bully".
• Throughout these tracks, the singing have a sharp smile, akin to a storybook character concealing a knife: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You've the podium of disappointment."

A Maximalist Banquet for the Ears

This album is pop on a maximalist scale, an ambitious reach for capital-A artistry amid of looming AI-generated blankness. It eschews solipsism for glorious elevation, creating a dramatic drama that masterfully controls its built-in ridiculousness. It is a deep source of buried treasure that takes patience to completely explore but doesn't feels like a chore. Where other big releases of 2025 felt like a meager scraps, Lux offers a sumptuous banquet where the guests at it, perhaps tipsy on holy wine, flutter from discussions about historical saints, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and shared stories about useless men. It is a modern-day theatrical production from music's most restlessly creative practitioner.