When Rosalía announced her album Lux last month, she described the album as the “emotional arc of feminine mystique, transformation, and transcendence,” hinting at heady themes and high-minded production.
The Spanish star more than delivered. Lux is out now, showcasing operatic inspirations, collaborations with the London Symphony Orchestra, and careful training Rosalia perfected through years of work. Rolling Stone lauded Lux as an instant classic, calling it “a truly timeless work of art” that “no other pop star could have made.”
It’s also a deeply personal album. Already, the lyrics in 14 languages have turned stans into forensic analysts as they try to decipher the meaning in each line. The star also alludes to intimate moments in her life: She taps música mexicana’s Yahritza from Yahritza y Su Esencia for an unforgiving breakup song titled “La Perla” and also gets Yves Tumor and Björk for the left-of-center single “Berghain,” just to name a few features. The music feels like an intense, experimental, dramatic journey, best played in the dark, as she’s suggested. Here are six of our takeaways from Rosalía’s stunning project.
She embraces her classical training
Rosalía put her classical music training on full display here. She is a trained conservatory musician who famously studied vocal flamenco performance for at the Catalonia College of Music (ESMUC) in Barcelona. Her program was so prestigious, it usually accepts only one student per year. Her mastery is evident across the LP, from tapping the London Symphony Orchestra to nodding to Vivaldi and Mozart. Rosalía also extended her vocal prowess by learning more about opera. Weeks before Lux was released, the singer was spotted reading the musical score from the 1900 Puccini opera Tosca. This proved to be an Easter Egg of sorts. “I wanted to make a song that was like my version of what an aria could be,” she told Billboard of the track “Mio Cristo.” —M.G.
She expands her linguistic horizons, too
In an interview for The New York Times’ Popcast, Rosalía revealed she sang in 14 languages on the album. The singer is already fluent in Spanish and Catalan, but familiarized herself with 12 other languages, including English, Latin, Italian, Ukrainian, Japanese, Arabic, Sicilian, Mandarin, Hebrew, Portuguese, and French — just to name a few. “It’s a lot of trying to understand how other languages work,” she said of the arduous writing and recording process. Rosalía turned to both Google Translate and a professional translator to help with phonetics and overall pronunciation, but even so, songs took several takes to get right. She also clarified that the linguistic challenge is “very much human” and does not use AI. That much is clear by listening to Lux, where the singer seamlessly transitions through each language like a pro. —M.G.
She savages her ex
Rosalía eviscerates a narcissistic ex — “a local disappointment,” “a national heartbreaker,” “an emotional terrorist” — on “La Perla” with musica mexicana singer Yahritza. The strings swell as she targets a former lover who “spends money he has and doesn’t have” and who doesn’t understand the meaning of “loyalty and faithfulness.” She sings, “He’s a pearl, no one trusts him/ He’s a pearl, one to be very careful with.” Many fans think the song is about her ex-fiancé Rauw Alejandro, but whether it is or not doesn’t matter; what stands out is how Rosalía finds revenge over the stunning arrangement. —T.M.
She revives an unreleased, Pharrell-produced song
For years, fans begged Rosalía to release “De Madrugá,” the Pharrell-produced track she recorded during El Mal Querer. It never saw the light back then — until Lux. This time, Rosalía tweaks the original leaked lyrics, even slipping in a line in Ukrainian that translates to “I am not looking for revenge.” She dials back the overt religious imagery from the earlier version, instead singing in one verse: “The chains weigh me down / from looking back so much / there’s no weapon, no Glock or Beretta / that can fire and bring you back.” The new rendition also folds in lush strings that help tie it to the album’s symphonic approach. —T.M.
The physical version of the album offers a different experience
While it’s common for artists to add a bonus track or two to their physical releases, Rosalía chose to add three songs to the vinyl and CD versions of the record, and they’re spread throughout the album: On “Focu ‘Ranni,” a breakup song from the third movement, she sings in Sicilian. “I’ll never be your half, never your property,” the lyrics go. “I’ll be mine, and of my freedom.” The closing track from the album’s third movement, “Jeanne,” is an emotional French-Spanish ballad about self-destruction. The following song, and the opener of the fourth, “Novia Robot,” takes a stark stylistic turn as she tells the story from the perspective of an imaginary sex robot that sells her “electronic puchina.” She sings in Mandarin and later in Hebrew about being a robot girlfriend. “I dress up for God / not for you or anyone / I only dress up for my God,” she sings. —T.M.
She has thoughts about her wedding
Last year, Rosalia announced that she was engaged to Rauw Alejandro through the video for their song “Beso.” The couple shared details about the proposal in a GQ video, and she even hinted that she had wedding dress ideas in an interview in Spain. However, a few months later, the couple broke up and called off the engagement. On “Focu ‘Ranni,” one of the songs from the physical album, she works through feelings from walking away from it all. The song alludes to the wedding that never was: “No one will throw rice up at the sky, no one will bring flowers or get drunk, there’ll be no one to bless a love he’ll never truly know.” She also hints at Rauw by evoking a tattoo she got of his name, singing, “I etched your name on my ribs but my heart never had your initials.” She declares, “I’ll just belong to me and to my liberty.” —J.L.
