LUX

At first I thought: Just another pop-singer. Then I listened to the album. And this was much more than anticipated! Even got goosebumps on some songs. She's an amazing singer. And the classical influences in this album are so well done and mixed in.

Normally I would say it's much and much to early to give an album a classic status (only a few weeks old at the moment). In the case of LUX by ROSALÍA there is no doubt. Het previous album was also a great one, but this is clearly a milestone in (pop)music history. A song like "Berghain" is a monument on its own.

Orchestral pop, art pop, classical, avant-pop. Vinilo, va.

Dramatic and fascinating! Great suggestion!

LOVE it. One of the biggest surprises and I have The Lonely Island to thank for recommending this album on their podcast.

I almost cried on the subway on my first listen because this album is just so so beautiful. I felt all of the feels, and understood a fraction of the lyrics. Wonderful, elating, masterpiece.

Wow, how did this album pass me by? In my defence it’s only two months old, but this is incredible. An instant masterpiece that blows the theory out of the water that we should only recommend albums over X years old. As a big fan of new music, I’m in favour of this group continuing to champion very recent albums.

People complaining that this is too new to be on the list...but guaranteed in 10 years time it will be on the next edition. Look deeper into the album. Why is it on here? She sings in 13 languages....that in itself makes it worthy to be here.

Not first listen! Still haven't gone and listened to the "full" version (the CD has like 4 extra tracks), but this'll more than suffice As 2025 grew to a close, with its best albums relegated to the “Almost Great” category, along came Rosalía, at the eleventh hour, to thoroughly beat me over the head with LUX. “You want greatness”, it seemed to say, “well here it is.” She brings a thousand piece orchestra, sings in 800 languages, and has intercourse with your spouse/significant other, all in less than an hour. Do not skip! HL: "Reliquia", "Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti", "Berghain", "La Perla", "Memória"

Rating: 10/10

Turns out my least favorite thing about modern pop is inane lyrics, so when they're in Spanish I love it!

What a voice and what an album.

Not my usual cup of tea, but I was really impressed. Might be my best discovery after 352 users albums. Thanks !

This was the best album of 2025 hands down. And while I think it may be too soon to add it to a list like this, this is an easy 5 stars. Great pick.

Was thinking that one of the tracks had very Björk-like vocals, only to find out it was Björk. But be so for real, this album came out a month ago

i think this is a worse version of weyes blood, which i absolutely love

Mind. Blown. Björk, Lorde, Kate Bush - meet the modern-day counterpart.

This down here is the review of LUX I have written for the Mowno music website. Words of caution: this is the longest review I have ever written for that website, lol. But Rosalia released such a pivotal (and much discussed) album last year that the thing probably deserved its own exegesis, right? https://www.mowno.com/en/reviews/rosalia-lux/ And here is the full text of the review copied and pasted below: Some artists enter the world of music the way others enter a religious order, and for the few who truly stamp their era, the word icon eventually slips into the conversation. Along their path—whether it’s an ascent toward glory or the way of the cross—every sacred relic gets exalted by pop-culture hagiographers: the songs, the albums, and of course the legendary covers. The sleeve of *Lux*, Rosalía’s fourth LP, sketches a quiet tale of this modern devotion—both the audience’s and that of a woman seemingly consecrated to the act of creation. Rarely has the word "iconography" been such a precise label for an album artwork—so precise that the image itself might feel a little too immaculate at first glance. But the devil lies in the details, as always: is the gown clasping Rosalía’s arms a kind of ceremonial robe, or the ghost of a straightjacket? Are we looking at a sanctified figure or a slightly deranged imitation? Is the thing a miracle or a put-on? The line between what makes a saint and what gets someone branded a heretic has always been razor-thin. The final impact of a prophet is often measured by the way her words and actions provoke an almost even split between devotion and outright rejection at first. The same dynamic is at play here, judging by the arguments that ripped through our newsroom over Lux, with long-time believers, fresh converts, agnostics, and sudden apostates all hurling contradictory vocabularies at the same album. It’s inevitable when you’re trying to pin down a record that’s simultaneously a self-contained universe and an intimate portrait of a woman—and one that, beyond Spanish, pulls in thirteen other languages for its sculpted hooks and little mystical dispatches scattered across its eighteen tracks. Commentators—and the artist herself—have already spilled plenty of ink over the album’s tangle of languages and musical dialects, just as they’ve dissected its overarching narrative here exploring the concept of sainthood. *Lux* draws on more than fifteen female figures, each offering a different interpretation of sanctity across cultures. Some of the “saints” Rosalía invokes flirt with cliché (Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Ávila, Joan of Arc…), while others sit miles away from those postcard images: the blood-soaked vengeance of Saint Olga of Kyiv, the feminist radicalism of the Taoist Sun Bu’er, the selfless devotion of the Sufi mystic Rābiʿa al-Adawiyya… Above all, these figures serve as mirrors the Spanish musician holds up to herself, a way to parse her identity as both woman and artist without bowing for a single second to doctrine or orthodoxy. Accusations of heresy are therefore unlikely to trouble someone this fearless. Another widely chewed-over topic: the division of the tracklist into four thematic “movements,” each one tracing either a consistent internal intensity or a jumble of radically different intentions. Let’s be honest: this wink at the codes of classical music—really a nod to the album’s orchestral heft, with every track bringing in the London Symphony Orchestra, no less—does little to clarify the record’s shapeshifting nature, nor does it help explain its unmistakable emotional voltage. One essential element is indeed missing from this encyclopedic, promotional codex on faith—the one thing that defines the visceral effect of *Lux*: incarnation. The divine voice here takes flesh—human, passionate, whole, multifaceted, and unpredictable. It is this voice, both literally and figuratively, that transforms the album’s weighty content into an unforgettable experience. On “Reliquia”, the LP’s first ecstatic banger, Rosalía travels the world, leaving fragments of herself in each city she passes through, like the relics of Santa Rosa de Lima. These relics feel like organic promises of an encounter, embodied in a string pattern that is at once buoyant, intricate, and hieratic—only to suddenly transmute into dazzling hyperpop synth flourishes, frenzied and kaleidoscopic. The heart of the saint may be detached from her body, but it still beats fiercely for humanity. On the 5/4 techno pulse of “Divinize”, spiked with sharp pizzicatos and laden with impromptu harmonic caresses, Rosalía asks her lover to count her vertebrae as if she were a human rosary. The sensuality of her voice is breathtaking, proving once again her ability to alternate powerhouse vocal displays—like the operatic aria of “Mio Cristo”, where the beloved weeps diamonds—with subtle vulnerabilities, such as when the Spanish singer wryly contemplates the emptiness of chasing material goods over a glass of “Sauvignon Blanc”. It’s quite a risky subject to handle for an international star, yet she navigates it with impeccable poise. In both her songwriting and her vocal performance, Rosalía releases and reins in her impulses at precisely the right moments, every time. She shines with a pop instinct that is untouchable, carnal, and fully possessed. Percussion, handclaps, and flamenco guitars also make a triumphant return on *Lux*. Subtle on “Reliquia” and “Divinize”, these sounds explode later in the album on gems like “De Madrugá” and “La Rumba del Perdón”, the latter featuring two other legendary voices of the genre: Estrella Morente and Sílvia Perez Cruz. This flamenco revival—the artist’s original musical grammar, which had largely ceded space to reggaeton loops on *Motomamí*—brings the focus back to what matters: conveying universal emotion despite local particularities, without undermining her homage to other Hispanic traditions. Take, for example, the strong Afro-Cuban influences on “Dios Es un Stalker”, where Rosalía, with an omniscient gaze, pursues the object of her desire. She tops it off with a jaw-dropping chromatic climb in the second chorus (twice on the physical album version), as if to propel her quest for amorous transcendence even further. When clichés land with such sincerity, humor and mastery, resistance is futile. Likewise, the sardonic waltz “La Perla” injects a touch of popular levity into an album that could have buckled under the weight of its length and conceptual ambition. Here, Rosalía gleefully eviscerates a toxic ex-lover—himself a reggaeton star, if you’re curious—while simultaneously asserting her place within the canon of Hispanic popular music, fully unafraid of delivering a tongue-in-cheek fantasia piece, if only for one “lyric-driven” song. In her hands, being ecumenical isn’t a compromise; it’s a declaration of intents. Less airy, and sitting at the opposite end of the album’s spectrum, is the thunderous “Berghain” with its towering Teutonic choir drawing from Vivaldi, Wagner, and the Carl Orff of *Carmina Burana*. This first single may show flashes of show-off opportunism — the sort of thing ready-made for a commercial promoting a *Now That’s What I Call Classical* compilation — but Rosalía’s sheer fervor wipes away the gimmickry. And when Björk and Yves Tumor steer the piece into darker, more menacing territory in its second half, the track swells with a new, almost volcanic gravity. A cursory listen to *Lux* might suggest this kind of darkness barely shows its face in the rest of the tracklist, but that’s far from true: the orchestral Latin-trap of “Porcelana”—with its heavy timpani and black coils of strings — plunges into genuinely sinister terrain. Elsewhere, the dusk-lit rendition of the traditional song “Mundo Nuevo” draws from the same shadowed palette. The mysticism of *Lux* needs these passages of darkness at key moments. As Rosalía herself has said, it’s through the cracks and the spells of despair that the light giving the album its title shines most beautifully. But it’s in “La Yugular” that this mysticism reaches its most delirious — and delirium-inducing — form. Three distinct sections alternate or flow into each other. The first, threaded with Eastern-sounding strings, is relatively serene. “How many battles can fit in the lines of a hand? How many stories in the 21 grams of a soul?” Rosalía asks herself there. Then a brief refrain appears, where the narrator murmurs an astonishing plea in Arabic to her divine beloved, vowing to tear down heaven and hell alike to find Him again. Finally, an entire cosmology blooms out of nothing and unfurls before the stunned listener. Rosalía leaps from the microscopic to the cosmic with vocal command verging on pure magic: in this mental landscape morphing through one dreamlike shape after another, a haiku can occupy the space of a country, a whole galaxy can be held in a drop of saliva, a drop of saliva can blanket Fifth Avenue, Fifth Avenue can fit inside a piercing, and on it goes… A sublime moment, crowned by a jaw-dropping orchestral climax, where the infinitely small is measured against the epic and the infinitely large — one more way of collapsing the personal into the universal. A snippet of a young Patti Smith caught mid-interview seals this central moment of the album, promising the opening — not of the seventh gate of paradise, but of a million other doors besides. And with “La Yugular,” we see that Rosalía now holds the keyring for that eternal mission. Finally, it’s impossible to discuss this album without mentioning its last two tracks, which confront death and convey emotion most directly, with a simplicity and nakedness that evoke a calm spring of timeless beauty. First comes the magnificent fado “Memórias,” originally written by the singer Carminho in the purest tradition of the genre and offered to Rosalía in a duet version, where the two harmonize in Portuguese over the passage of time that can never erase a lifetime of memories. Then, the heartbreaking finale “Magnolias” imagines the artist’s ideal funeral — the day when friends and foes alike will lay flowers on her coffin, and song will replace tears over the sound of majestic pipe organs. With this final gesture, Rosalía doesn’t just match Nick Cave or Jacques Brel; she also answers, almost incidentally, the question raised in “La Yugular” or the opening track “Sexo Violencia y Llantas”: is it possible to reach paradise during the course of a life spent in a divided and violent human world? According to the Barcelonan, the answer is yes — if you allow yourself to be carried by art and inspiration to meet God “halfway,” somewhere between earth and sky. God, or any higher power capable of speaking to the human soul… A vital breath, sorely missing in today’s pop music, runs throughout Lux. It’s a breath on the scale of the trumpets that brought down the walls of Jericho, delivered by an artist whose sharp modernity never stops her from drawing on the deepest archetypes. Rosalía also has better angels on her shoulders to do so, given how she is aided in her quest by an extended congregation of producers, composers, and arrangers, all aligned behind a single vision. Among them are Dylan Wiggins and Noah Goldstein, co-architects of the artistic success of *Motomamí*, alongside a who’s who of experts and luminaries too numerous to name. This sort of Rolodex recalls the one of Beyoncé (Rosalía is a pop star after all), and Björk’s presence also speaks volumes about the sort of torch that’s being passed on here. The ambition that’s displayed here now runs on this scale. What other album released this year stretches from the fado of “Memórias” to the hyperpop of “Focu ‘Ranni” (one of three exclusive tracks on the physical editions)? And what other 2025 release manages such extremes while sustaining this level of overall quality? *Lux* does not claim to reach perfection, however. Beyond its concept, it primarily portrays the humanity of an artist, with her strengths and vulnerabilities, placing herself at the center of all her musical inspirations. “No woman has ever claimed to be God,” the mystic Rābiʿa al-Adawiyya once declared — a quotation highlighted on the album’s physical edition. The work’s glossolalia evokes the one of Pentecost, admittedly, when the chaos of human tongues sparks a “tongue of fire,” which is also the voice of the Almighty: singular, totalizing, and incomprehensible to mortals. Yet *Lux* is also a popular work, fully accessible to anyone willing to surrender to its silky textures, bewitching melodies, and innate sense of adventure. Of course, skeptics who see the Spanish singer as anything but saintly may still feel her disciples indulge a touch too much in idolatry. Yet to them, we say: “Have you heard the good news?” For yes, *Lux* is a damn good — and also holy — piece of news for music in 2025. For one doubting Thomas, how many others will file past in awe? 4.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 5. 9.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 4.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 87 (including this one) Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 109 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 222 ---- Yo, Émile. Je t'ai enfin répondu. Regarde sous... *Demon Days*, de Gorillaz, au-dessus ! 😉

Quite good. Didn’t understand it, not something I would seek out, but great voice. Nice submission

I like this a lot! Literally operatic with several other influences. Perhaps premature to toss on this list but the fan list has like 4 bullshit Bruce Springsteen albums so who cares!

Really a wild listen. Uber polished, in 14 languages?!, has Bjork, and contains elements of opera, pop, electronica, rap, and orchestra arrangements. If there ever was maximalist music in 2025, this is it.

Makes me wish as usual my high-school school/college Spanish (perpetually degrading from disuse) was stronger. Although slightly marred by jarring tonal shifts I thought this was great.

Good stuff, 4 Really beautiful 5 4 Close

Look, this is a bit overly dramatic for my personal taste, but I cannot deny the talent and ambition on display here. Very impressive.

4.5

striking

Fun

This was beautiful music!

I don’t really get picking an album this new but it is pretty good

Rosalía got a lot of eyes on her with her Latin pop reggaetón hits like Saoko and Despechá off her album Motomami. While not quite breaking through to the mainstream anglosphere like Bad Bunny, she was turning a lot of heads regardless. For her follow-up, Rosalía would take a more conceptually spiritual approach and dedicated four different movements of the album to different female saints. Given this weight of such a topic, it makes sense that the music of Lux would invoke the grandiose sound of classical music. Yes, Rosalía is backed by an entire orchestra as the album strikes a balance between her pop background and the striking strings of the London Symphony Orchestra. This makes for a fairly dramatic album that swings between delicate wistful contemplation to massive compositions that encompasses the full range of Rosalía's ambition for this project. It's nothing short of exceptional! And yet, something holds it back. The pacing of this album is frankly disorienting, occasionally jerking itself from one track to the next with barely a transition. Certain songs are clear centerpieces for each given moment (La yugular, Berghain) and other times the movements move fairly seamlessly. It certainly captures the subject matter of the album, but I would find myself almost puzzled by the flow of the middle two movements. I will give it this though, it was rarely a bore. And my god, what a beautiful elegance. I can't not give it credit, you know? CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Too soon to tell! Maybe in five years time we'll still be talking about what a magnificent album this was, but for now I have to count it out for recency bias.

I can't believe I like this. OMG it's less than a year old. Beautiful voice and orchestration (it does kinda remind me of a Eurovision winner but in a good way). This is what this list is about.

Damn, y'all work quick. I've heard about this album, though, so it must be something to get enough notoriety so quickly. However, I find it to just be alright. I can see why someone would be entranced by this album, though. I was myself at some points.

Spanish Chapell Roan did an album about saints or nuns or something? This just came out, chill

“Edith Piaf meets LSO to remake the Passion of Joan of Arc” sounds more like an AI prompt than a pop album. Sure, it’s new and different and crazy ambitious but those aren’t necessarily all upside features. Indeed, one can be impressed by the voice (and multilingual vocals) and the scope without thinking it works very well. Primarily because it’s just too much and over-reaches throughout; one feels bludgeoned by the spectacle rather than enriched by the substance. The vibes are more Madonna-Evita or Baz Luhrman than Bjork or Kate Bush (heavens, no). When pop culture so overtly aims to burnish its serious aesthetic credentials, folks of refinement and taste will remember precisely why it can so infrequently be taken seriously. Here, there’s too much that’s discordant –tutti-scale concerto strings that give way to raps like “fuck you til I love you” and other spoken word banalities. Bottom line: this hasn’t exactly stood the test of time – clear recency bias at work here (though one's glad to have finally gotten around to listening to it). One suspects it may never rank higher than flawed/laughable classical outings from McCartney or Sting or Billy Joel. (Call one a traditionalist but some formats are best left to professionals, right?) But okay fine let’s have it switch out for Metallica with SF Symphony because this scores just a bit lower on the bombast-o-meter.

I've been meaning to listen to this since it came out but hadn't got around to it. It was getting so much buzz since it came out in the last few weeks, especially with the end of 2025 best of lists so I had high expectations. It completely flopped for me. I was expecting something more than what it was. To me it was a bunch of over-produced okay songs with a lot of classical stuffed on top. It just doesn't work for me. No song made me feel anything. It sounds so much like an overly dramatic soundtrack to a video game and just sounds muddled and a mess. And it has god awful guest vocals at times. Rosalia should be on the list but this album doesn't do it for me. Also, give it a few months before adding an album. This album came out less than 2 months ago. Let it cook a little bit. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes, but not this album.

35th best album of last year according to my list

I like it

Lux has something about it even through the language barriers (14 languages :D ); the full orchestral performance is impressive and creates a compelling sound that is both huge and intimate at the same time, and she has an outstanding voice, it's just not always used properly. It's a bit too weird in places for me overall but it's very dramatic and kept me interested, gets a 3/5 on that basis.

don't get the hype

For each user submission I will decide if I believe it was submitted to "correct the record" and deserves inclusion on the main list or if its more of a personal favorite or pet album of the user. Pet album but also so recent, it may stand up to time but who knows.

So many feelings about this album. 1. What a mixed bag 2. I want to know more about the saints/women of history that influenced her 3. When lyrics are translated they sound ridiculous 4. When you think about it, all lyrics are ridiculous 5. English was the worst language on this album. I don’t think I’d listen again but I’m glad I did.

I'm a sucker for maximalist bullshit so I really wish the rest of this album sounded like "Berghain". Aside from some other gems like "Reliquia", it's a bit too samey for me. She can sing in 14 different languages alright, should have written 14 different sounding songs as well.

Takes some big swings & drifts to a lot of different places, but it still is soft pop in its bones. Bumping it up one for ambition, but I don't want to pretend like I wasn't checking my watch a lot during the back half

I don't get it.

Having a 2025 album on the user list seems a bit to recent to be a favorite out of all the options but to each their own. This album is very much impressive in its own right. Rosalia has a wonderful singing voice. Although this is in Spanish it’s still pleasant to listen to. The production has a lot of modern impact while still keeping it poppy. Overall this could’ve been a pretty enjoyable album if I had a stronger understanding. Good but not something I’d revisit. 5.2/10

Takes the memory span of a goldfish to add an LP that came out just over a month ago. It would be one thing if the album was good, but unfortunately Rosalía's excellent vocals aren't given time to shine in crowded compositions that can't decide between synthy pop or traditionalist ballads. Awful guest features (except Björk, she's great) only add to the confusion and make this feel more disjointed mixtape than cohesive album.

I just don't get it. I know this was one of the most critically heralded albums of 2025, but it was just so BORING. I realize I'm not a poptimist, but nothing about this was even catchy or interesting. 1/5