WINGS OF DESIRE

Rosalía’s latest album Lux (2025) is further proof, if any were needed, that pop has its own Hildegard von Bingen. I was especially endeared to the standout track “La Perla” for its use of the phrase “emotional terrorist,” which the Spanish flamenco artist most likely uses as a veiled accusation levelled at her ex-fiancé Rauw Alejandro. For years, I’ve kept the expression “emotional war crimes” in my back pocket, waiting for the right moment to deploy it in a piece of writing. I suppose you’ve just had the preview.

Aside from the impressive use of thirteen different languages and the inspiration drawn from hagiographies of female saints throughout world history, it’s clear that the album’s sonic experimentation owes a great deal to Kanye West, whom Rosalía has often cited as a profound influence on her work. Much of Lux, with its avant-garde classical style, brought to mind aspects of West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It has that same maximalist, cosmic approach to music-making.

Whether it will hold the same replay value for me as that long-cemented 21st-century masterpiece remains to be seen, but in terms of its ambition, Lux has already impressed me with its sincerity, beauty, and spiritual searching, as well as its desire to shed the artificiality of the digital age and reject the material emptiness of celebrity life—even if only performatively, in the pursuit of more exalted heights.