Rosalía’s new offering, 'LUX', has become the most-streamed album in a day on Spotify by a Spanish-speaking female artist.
Her fourth record was released on Friday and amassed 42.1 million first-day streams, more than doubling the debut numbers for her critically-acclaimed 2022 album 'Motomami' - one of Euronews Culture’s Best European Albums of the 21st Century - which opened with 16million.
Up until the release of 'LUX', the record was held by Karol G, whose 2023 album 'Mañana Será Bonito' racked up 35.7million streams on its opening day.
'LUX' is already one of our favourite albums of the year, and impresses due to Rosalía’s unbridled ambition. The Spanish artist breaks from her previous fusion of traditional flamenco stylings with modern-day pop and hip-hop heard on her 2017 debut 'Los Ángeles', 2018’s 'El mal querer', as well as the reggaeton-fuelled sounds of 'Motomami' - to the extent that encompassing the mood at the heart of 'LUX' is a tough ask.
Arranged in four movements and impressively sung in up to 13 different languages (each language's lyrics corresponding to the life of a different female saint), it is an avant-garde and operatic opus, in which she is backed by the London Symphonic Orchestra and the likes of Björk, Yves Tumor and even Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Charlotte Gainsbourg as composers.
It’s a euphoric collection of tracks that may not be as immediately accessible as the ones on 'Motomami' but the album rewards repeat listens from those who appreciate risk-taking when it comes to artists breaking the definitions of pop music.
As Euronews Culture wrote in our album review: “A few times in a generation there comes along a sound that so radically goes against the conventions of a genre that it redefines its very boundaries. (...) Rosalía’s fourth studio album is defined by how it sounds completely unlike anything else.”
In other words, expect this immersive and innovative modern masterpiece to feature very high in our end-of-year list of best albums.