The music trade has been feeling a bit… middling. Protected wager after secure wager. Albums engineered for playlist slots, well mannered critiques, and easy algorithmic handshakes.
Then Rosalia’s LUX got here alongside.
It’s one thing stranger, braver, and tougher to bundle. Recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, it genre-glitches between opera, pop, hip hop and flamenco. Whereas her friends are nonetheless trapped writing about placing your fingers up within the membership, Rosalia tells tales of feminine visionaries, wanders by means of folklore, and makes confessions about trying sizzling for God.
And the languages. All 13 of them. She flips between them the best way most individuals flip between tabs. none waits its flip. They barge in, conflict, interrupt. A multilayered road market of lyrics and concepts. ChatGPT described LUX as “the sound of somebody tearing up the rulebook, then utilizing the confetti as percussion.” It’s my inventive spotlight as a result of it reminds us to maintain sticking two fingers as much as “mid”. It’s a nudge in direction of the unusual finish of the spectrum. A reminder you could love an trade and nonetheless refuse to reside inside it. Proof that weirder wins, and fortune nonetheless favours the courageous.
Hanni Randell-Bateman is technique director at Wolff Olins
