Rosalía’s New Album <i>Lux</i> Proves No One Is Doing It Like Her

When the cover art for Lux, Rosalía’s newest album, was unveiled just weeks ago, we got our first look at the long-anticipated work: the musician wearing white with a nun-like veil, embracing herself while basking in sunlight. One might’ve made predictions about what the album would sound like based on this image—maybe some religious themes or celestial vibes—and, to an extent, that turned out to be true. But no one could’ve possibly predicted the sheer magnitude of the album. Inspired by classical orchestral music and opera—but imbued with influences of pop, electronic, hip-hop, and more—Lux is grandiose, audacious, and full of big risks (sung in 13 languages, by the way). But it’s also purely Rosalía.

Lux follows her bombastic 2022 album Motomami, which was inspired by the Caribbean and Reggaeton. That was preceded by her breakthrough second album, El Mal Querer, where her modern, pop-inspired spin on flamenco music started earning her mainstream recognition. The Spanish singer spent three years writing Lux, penning lyrics in various languages (and checking in with her teachers about her pronunciation), reading feminist literature and biographies, and recording arrangements with the London Symphony Orchestra. As a result, the album explores the divine feminine, her freedom, and the idea of sainthood in a truly avant-garde way.

Here, two ELLE editors (one of whom is a former opera major!) discuss Rosalía’s bold new work, her religious inspirations, and why it might be the best album of 2025.

Samuel Maude, content strategy manager: You know how there are albums where you listen to them for the first time and you’re like, “I’m going to remember where I was”? This is one of those albums for me. Maybe it was because I was sick in bed with the flu, but it really blew me away. There’s no other piece of music out there right now that sounds like this.

I’m always joking, “If I were a pop star, this is what I’d do.” But with my background in classical music and opera, I’ve always wanted to find a way to marry my love of pop music and classical together. I’m so glad Rosalía figured out how to do that. This album feels tailor-made for me. I honestly think it’s the best album of this year—and it’s already one of my all-time favorites.

Erica Gonzales, deputy editor, culture: It’s hard even entering this conversation, because this album feels so big and expansive in so many ways, from the sounds to her ambition, the lyrics, and the literary and classical references. But speaking of knowing exactly where you were when you first listened, I had a moment like that with her album El Mal Querer in 2018. I remember sitting in my apartment listening to “Malamente” and thinking, Oh my God, I’ve never heard anything like this before. I need more from her.

She’s classically trained and studied flamenco, so back then, she was already integrating all these different elements with her take on the classical genre. I feel like Lux is that times a hundred. It’s so unexpected and it’s so unique, and something only she could have done.

EG: I relistened to Rosalía’s New York Times Popcast interview, where she talks about how she fully believes her music is pop. And I think that’s so important, because you and I listen to new music every day for our jobs, and a lot of it is pop music. And then somebody like her comes along and shows you: this is what pop music can be, actually. It can sound like this.

SM: I was listening to these songs and I thought, These could be on the radio.

EG: I dare you to put “Berghain” on Z100!

SM: I dare you. The thing is, people do actively listen to music like this walking down the streets in New York or driving in traffic in L.A. This is what pop music can be. We should strive for more than just a radio hit.

EG: I agree. In that interview, she said, “I know I’m asking a lot of my audience because I’m singing classical, singing in 13 different languages.” She says that it’s supposed to be listened to front-to-back as a full album. In this era of TikTok clips and optimizing everything for short, viral success, it’s asking for a lot, but there is an appetite and an audience for that. She’s not underestimating the intelligence of her audience and knows that we can meet her there.

SM: One hundred percent. I’ve seen a lot of praise for “Berghain,” so I’m hopeful that the rest of the album has the same effect. I would’ve loved to be in those studio sessions or in the room during the time she spent with the London Symphony Orchestra. I want to see what their sheet music looked like. I want to see what the conductor did with them. I want to live in her world because what she did here is unheard-of.

SM: I don’t cry to music, ever. I cried during “Mio Cristo.” As a classical music fan, it is for sure an Italian art song, even an aria, that shows she obviously did her research. There were sounds of Vivaldi and other Baroque composers stitched in there. It makes me emotional because I worry so much about classical music and these art forms that I love and cherish fading out with my generation, and this made me feel like there is hope for it. I’m curious if other musicians will start experimenting with more classical sounds as well.

EG: We’re seeing a lot of up-and-coming artists put a new, youthful, refreshing spin on “older” genres. We’ve seen it with Laufey, Samara Joy, and even Olivia Dean with jazz music. People love Peso Pluma for what he did with Mexican traditional music. Even Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro with Puerto Rican and Caribbean music. Maybe we’ll see even more people reiterating or transforming genres in a certain way.

SM: I love that in “Mio Cristo,” in the break, she says, “That’s gonna be the energy,” and then it ends. It’s what everyone’s thinking in their head during a song like that.

SM: The languages are really important here. “Mio Cristo” being entirely in Italian and feeling like an Italian art song definitely didn’t go unnoticed. There’s been a lot of commentary on her singing in different languages and what that means. The fact is, when you go to the Met Opera, chances are your opera’s going to be in Italian or German—and you might not understand a word.

It’s very common for people in opera to sing in different languages and spend time learning how to speak the language. Of course, there are people who are critical of how those people speak those languages, and I’m mildly worried someone’s going to clock her for something here. But the people who are upset with her for singing in different languages don’t understand the classical music genre either. It’s more so about the vocals and the way this song connects to people. It’s about how this song gets her story across. There are many operas I watch where I don’t understand a word, but I can understand what’s happening because of the emotion that the singer is conveying through their voice. And I think Rosalía does that throughout this album. It is true to the classical world she’s inhabiting.

EG: She was talking about how she spent a whole year just working on the lyrics, which ones sounded best in which languages, rewriting them if it wasn’t right, and sending the songs to her language teachers for feedback.

When it comes to the intention behind the language, I think of the song “Novia Robot,” because she’s speaking Spanish, Mandarin, and Hebrew. I thought that was interesting, because the song is about the universal experience of women being sexualized and reduced to being just bodies for male pleasure. And using different languages further emphasizes that point—it applies to women around the world. I wonder if it’s also a commentary on the manufacturing industry and how a lot of technology is made in China, and that’s why it’s in Mandarin.

SM: I think we’re seeing an artist who thinks so intensely about every choice. I feel like we’re just seeing a true master and someone who understands not only the impact art can have, but also the places it came from.

SM: I have listened to “Reliquia” probably 30 times. I can’t wait for it to be available to stream. It’s about to go platinum.

EG: Platinum in my house immediately.

SM: It’s going to make my Spotify Wrapped.

EG: With only one month to go.

SM: The ending of it is literally what I think astral projection feels like. It gagged me. I want to be able to relive that feeling of hearing that for the first time. It was otherworldly. And I also loved the lyrics: “I lost my heels in Milan and my smile in the U.K.” It’s very beautiful and shows that you lose things along the way, and you leave them in places as relics, but you still move forward.

EG: The melody of the verses sounds almost like they’re from a musical. It sounded like the beginning of a “want song,” and it kind of is, in a way. But I thought the orchestration was so cool here, with the strings, the page-turning sound effects, and the switch-up and beat drop towards the end of the song. I felt like I was levitating. Even the lyrics sum up that feeling of boundlessness, of soaring, of limitlessness. She says, “A wild and endless sea, there’s no way out, an eternal song,” which I wish this was.

SM: I was thinking about some of Mozart’s operas, especially the duets with secondary characters or with characters who are meant to be the “fool.” This song reminded me of The Magic Flute, when Papageno and Papagena have this duet moment onstage. She pays homage to so many incredible moments in opera and in classical music. It’s astounding.

“La Perla” is quite juicy. That’s the thing with this album, too—she addresses her life against a classical background, and I do think people often forget that operas are drama. People cheat. They’re funny at times. A lot of them are comedies. I think people think of them as these very serious pieces, but in reality, they’re entertaining. It’s like Shakespeare’s plays; people think of them as stuffy, but a lot of them are funny. This song is structured, to me, like an aria with elements of flamenco and whatnot, but it’s about something that people would sing about in an opera. People wouldn’t expect that this type of song is set to this type of music, but somehow it works.

EG: It also has a modern appeal, like you could say any of these insults about somebody you met on Hinge. You know what I mean? There’s a kind of “why do men suck?” lament to it. It honestly sounds uplifting. If I had heard it without the translation, I’d be like, “Oh, what a pretty little song.” There’s humor there, too. She’s basically calling this man broke—a walking red flag. She was like, “You don’t pay rent, you’re an emotional terrorist, a world-class fuck-up, a rip-off.”

SM: Her and Lily Allen, coming in hot.

EG: I don’t think this was her intention, but I was wondering, What if this is a breakup album? Because it’s her being wronged by someone and then coming out of it feeling empowered and independent, divinely feminine, and calling him out. That is very powerful too.

One other thing about “La Perla” is—I don’t know if you noticed—but if you listen closely to the percussion in the background of the second verse, you can hear her sharpening a knife and then using it as percussion, banging it on the table.

EG: I feel like I need to—and every listener needs to—listen to this several times, because it’s so loaded that you’re not going to get it all in one sitting. It needs to be revisited.

SM: It is a long album and demands a lot of its listeners. But to me, it didn’t feel like other 30-track albums that have come out in the last couple of years that have been an hour and a half long or something. Granted, this was 18 tracks, but it didn’t feel long. It didn’t feel like it was asking too much of me. I was in it. I was there with her.

EG: Yes, it’s an hour, but every minute, every second, every beat count matters. It doesn’t waste your time at all.

EG: As a fellow...survivor of Christian trauma, what did you think of the saintly and religious references?

SM: I think that’s why I love that there’s a song called “Berghain,” because I know a lot of people who come from intense religious backgrounds, who wind up becoming club kids. A good friend of mine called this party that they would go to “church,” because the club for many people can be an intense place of community and belonging.

I felt very seen in this album as someone who frequents and loves clubs. As a former Catholic and as someone who carries a lot of Catholic trauma, hearing these sounds that I heard as a kid when we would go to church, or hearing references to the music that I did love as a kid, really filled my heart up. It also made me feel like there’s a life for this music elsewhere in my life.

EG: I agree. I’m also coming from a perspective that Christianity and Catholicism have always regarded women in a very…interesting way. You have a saintly mother like Mary, and then you have the sinner; the “Madonna and the whore complex,” essentially. And you’re always reminded of the stain that an impure woman has in society. But it was interesting that Rosalía talked about how they can often be one and the same. There are certain saints who have fought in wars and killed a bunch of people. Whether it’s in Christianity or other religions, women who are revered or considered saints are not completely pure either. That’s also true of modern pop culture; no one we put on a pedestal is ever truly 100 percent perfect. She leans into the divine feminine and this message of, “I am imperfect, but still divine. There’s still something godly in being a woman even if you’re imperfect or impure.” I appreciated that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.