OK, OK, OK, first of all, let’s chill out a bit, OK?
There have been people reacting to the (absolutely fucking incredible, but we’ll get to that shortly) fourth album by Rosalía like the Spanish singer had uncovered a completely new form of making music and ‘Lux’ represents a stylistic shift in the artform akin to Worcester Fragments being compiled in the 13th century. She’s doing music influenced by opera and with a full orchestra!! My mind is literally blown!! I’m dead!!!!!!
Yeah, so we actually have a whole genre for that. Possibly two. Some great stuff. Some fucking dismal stuff as well, because ‘genre’ is as much as a signifier of musical quality as nipple size signifies how good you are at pub quizzes. Remember than song she did with Björk? I mean, before the newer song she did with Björk? Yeah, the Icelander would like a word, actually. In fact, following the Manics’ ‘Everything Must Go’ in 1996, for a couple of years in the late 90’s fucking everyone was adding an orchestra to their bog standard indie that would generally be left behind the bins in the alleyway. And it was almost always awful. The people dropping their arses at Rosalía apparently inventing a new form of music are the same kind of people who 25 years ago – having only ever listened to indie rock – would have said that ‘Kid A’ sounded like nothing else that had ever existed. Because, yeah, I guess Kid A sounds completely new if you’ve never heard Flim by Aphex Twin. What made Radiohead great and what makes Rosalía great is their shared willingness to go completely against what is expected of them and to take influences from unexpected and avant-garde places. The main difference is that Rosalía is a fucking badarse who looks amazing while doing it, and Radiohead… well, y’know…
‘Lux’ may not be the absolute first of its kind, it may not be Los Thuthanaka causing you to question if what you’re listening to even qualifies as music, but it’s still absolutely incredible, and in 2025 at least is something close to unique. It’s not just different from 2022’s ‘Motomami‘, but it shares barely any connective tissue at all. It not only sounds like it was made by a completely different artist than Rosalía’s previous critically adored (well… by everyone apart from me…) album, it sounds like it was made on a different planet with around a thousand year difference in timeframes. You can’t even call it an evolution: it’s more proof that Rosalía is a Desmond Miles-like figure jumping across multiple points in history to battle the Knights Templar with her world destroying voice and Sexo, Violencia y Llantas.
Because ‘Lux’ isn’t Electrasy offering some street performers £20 to add some strings to Morning Afterglow in the hope that people think they’re The Verve, it integrates these elements so completely and makes sure the London Sympathy Orchestra (“The London Orchestra Behind Star Wars & Harry Potter!!!”) earns their pay to such an extent that some critics have asked whether it should just straight up be considered a classical album.
I mean… it shouldn’t… but people are saying that!
Genre is garbage, and ‘Lux’ should only be considered a Rosalía album. Part of its power is that you simply couldn’t imagine anyone else in the world making an album like this, never mind somebody as successful as Rosalía. She doesn’t just reference classical music, she completely inhabits it and yet still manages to make incredible pop music while inside that world. She manages to make a record that sounds at once like it was made in the distant past and also a future we’re not close to being ready for yet.
In my insanely low #62 placing of ‘Motomami’ in 2022, I revealed my true Gammon self when I admitted how “I find it really difficult to connect with pop music that’s not in a language I understand”. Which, yeah, embarrassing, but at least I admitted it! Which actually makes me… something of a hero…? Well, Rosalía obviously did her best Michael Jordan meme impression and decided to take that very personally: “Fuck you in particular, Franchise!”, she evidentially thought, “Here are lyrics in 13 fucking languages you absolute cunt!!”.
And… yeah… I made a bit more effort this time. But this was mostly because ‘Lux’s lush orchestration appealed to me so much more than ‘Motomami’s abrasive reggaeton. I also don’t really like The Jam much, I just made that joke for a bit. Christ, I’m really exposing all my darkest secrets today!
Twelve views. Not a single like. That’s fucking gold, you people are cretins.
2022 #62 (+58!!! Some of the improvements on this year’s list are insane)
Pretty incredible, and the proles’ score of 87 is now slouch either.
Cool. You don’t necessarily have to jerk off to either you know?
Bollocks…
Necessary Evil 