The Top Album of 2025: The Artist's Masterpiece Secures the Number One Place.

On the surface, Lux could seem closer to an arduous academic challenge than the latest popular music album by a musician who just had a previous hit featured a global K-pop star. Split across four distinct parts and voiced in thirteen languages, this is a head-spinning orchestral-influenced work exploring feminine mystery, spiritual ascent, and bodily transformation, frequently via the lens of different female saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a theme treated with grounded openness elsewhere—is launched upwards on this record, supported by the constant presence of a major orchestra and contributions from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter among a long roll call of collaborators. Its sheer ambition by itself makes the efforts of other pop stars seem quite small.

Transcending Scholarly Exercise

That this album succeeds in transcend overly intellectual posturing feels nearly a miracle, with sole credit belonging to Rosalía. Although it's not the first time album to blend historical sounds and the present, the scale are far higher on Lux, and the balancing act more pronounced. The element that really raises this fourth album, outside of its multilayered tunes, rich compositions, and engrained drama, is an essential sense of fun. Similar to the legendary artist during her height, you find a wondrous sense to the vocalist's singing which sweeps the listener up in its whirlwind. When she's breaking your heart apart, you still want to stay alongside her through the ride.

A Prime Example of Joy

This exuberant spirit shines brightly on a stunning piano-led ballad about Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a sorrowful whirlpool for several minutes. Then, everything falls silent, and we hear a spontaneous laugh and a comment before a comically over-the-top orchestral crescendo crashes in like cartoonish impact. The song immediately segues to the wild single featuring racing orchestration, an imposing choral group, and a surprise appearance from none other than herself.

"The charm with this album is that you rarely quite understand—nor want to predict—what it is going to next."

Almost every song concludes in a totally different place from where it started. One moment examines the transient nature of fame over a delicate orchestration before collapsing in digital cacophony. Another, a cut that recalls her earlier rhythmic style starts out moody and sinister, with menacing vocals, until fluttering traditional handclaps and a heavenly choir arrive to smooth the song's rough edges.

The Balance Between Experiment and Pop

A key achievement of the album is navigating the line of radical experimentation and mainstream appeal. This is no surprise that the album has achieved her highest-charting work to break into the upper reaches of key markets: its heart contains a collection of truly catchy hits. One track performed primarily in English swells on a chorus that seems to collect increasingly infectious hooks while it spirals skyward. That trick gets echoed on another powerful track that grows and contracts, weaving multiple melodies like a complex tapestry.

• A dance-infused song seduces with its jaunty, Disney-adjacent flair and an anthemic chorus.
• In its words, it aligns with pop culture impact of other heartbreak anthems, lambasting a former partner described as an "psychological bully".
• Throughout these tracks, the vocals have a sharp smile, akin to a fairy-tale figure hiding a blade: "Top prize in acting like a scoundrel / You have won the trophy of disappointment."

An Opulent Feast for the Soul

This album represents popular music on a maximalist scale, an ambitious grasp for high Art in an era of impending AI-generated blankness. It rejects solipsism in favor of sublime elevation, creating a dramatic spectacle that skillfully manages its inherent ridiculousness. This is a deep well of buried gems that takes time to fully explore but never seem like hard work. Where other major pop albums of the year felt like feasting on scraps, this record offers a sumptuous feast at which the guests around it, perhaps tipsy on holy wine, flutter between conversations about ancient figures, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and shared stories about hopeless partners. It is a contemporary musical from music's most endlessly creative visionary.