By José Gandue @spinning zone
Rosalía archive photos
It has come out Lux, fourth album by the Spanish artist Rosalía. It's obvious that more than one person woke up with their headphones on, ready to write anything and everything about this album. It's understandable that, without even having heard it, many were already prepared to sound their critical horns and not forgive this woman for any misplaced comma.
Who told her to be famous, beautiful, intelligent, possessing a versatile and moving voice? Who forced her to record albums listened to billions of times, set trends, tour the world, and become the darling of global fandom?
If I repeated the formula of Motomami, Her previous album would have been labeled lazy, mediocre, trapped in the Top 40 addiction. But if, on the contrary, she dared to change course, she would find herself facing a pack ready to accuse her of being dissatisfied, reckless, exotic, of pretending to be "alternative" when she was already a musical monument worth a lot of money. (And from greed, you insufferable little girl, there's no coming back, especially when it's the greed of those who put up the money for you to perform on the global stage.).
Of course, how dare we think that such a young woman could produce the best album of recent times? How can we claim that Rosalía Vila Tobella, known simply as Rosalía, born 33 years ago in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, Catalonia, deserves to reach the pinnacle of success and that her new album is a masterpiece? May those who utter such nonsense be condemned to hell. And may they arrive in hell with headphones on, listening at full volume to the fifty minutes this recording lasts.
How many fights do the lines on my hands remember?
Come on, merciless critics, tear this album apart.
Shout it from the rooftops that Rosalía listened to too much advice from her friend Björk and went crazy. Say she sold her soul to the old theory of avant-garde, and that singing in twelve languages is a pompous act to dazzle intellectuals.
There will be those who complain in their corners, warning that this is not pop, because it dares to go through the sides of opera, through grandiloquent orchestral music, through Arabic strings, through the most experimental of electronics, to be contaminated with expressions of hip hop and, to top it all off, to return with more vigor to flamenco singing.
Yes, it's an eclectic album, just like the world itself—and even more so in the memory and experience of a woman who has traveled it extensively. Rosalía uses everything she heard, everything she saw, everything she carried in her heart to her advantage (and to ours), and transforms it beautifully until it becomes her own.
I occupy the world and the world occupies me
Be quiet for a while, listen: this is Pop.
But not the pop music that the usual suspects have forced on us, making us swallow the same mediocre auditory intentions as always.
Pop music deserves to be reconsidered, because in these new schemes, in these new freedoms, it can be much more interesting than anything else.
And yes, a woman. Because they no longer have to wonder what best suits a male expectation. It's a different world, thankfully.
The Titanic fits in a lipstick. A lipstick fills the sky.
Understand: life evolves and every day the light changes before our eyes.
And if you're brilliant, like Rosalía, you'll know there's no room for repeating yourself out of habit.
If in the process someone gets angry and feels betrayed —for wanting to stay in what has already been experienced—, let's say goodbye to them.
Hopefully many will understand and accompany her, because she, without saying so, awaits them to celebrate the path that changes landscape, that gathers the past and creates new moments before us.
Lux, Rosalía's album is the best album of the year.
And if it isn't, at least it deserves to be celebrated as the exquisite body tremor that accompanies us every time we hear it.
