Rosalía Doesn’t Want to Take It Easy
On her new album “Lux,” Spanish artist Rosalía breaks through the boundaries of pop music with intensity and daring ambition. In a landscape where nearly everyone seems to be chasing the “pop girlie” ideal, she remains a singular presence.
Last year, Taylor Swift described herself as one of the “tortured poets,” but now calls herself a “showgirl,” releasing a brief album of catchy songs co-produced by renowned hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback. The most talked-about new act of the year is Huntr/x, a fictional girl group from the animated Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters.”
Demi Lovato, once a Disney Channel star, revisited her roots with “Fast,” a glossy club track on her album “It’s Not That Deep.” Even Machine Gun Kelly experimented this year, starring in a video titled “Cliché,” where he danced and lip-synched like a late-career boy-bander. The move sparked ridicule intense enough that he posted an Instagram reel to explain himself:
“It’s a pop song, man,” he said.
Unlike these image-driven reinventions, Rosalía’s evolution feels more rooted and authentic. Trained in flamenco, she garnered international recognition with her 2018 release “El Mal Querer,” an ethereal fusion of flamenco and pop that also served as her thesis at the Catalonia College of Music.
Author’s Summary
Rosalía’s “Lux” shows her refusal to conform, asserting a unique artistic voice that challenges the limits of contemporary pop.