Rosalía's 'LUX' brings the symphony to the club

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Spanish pop star Rosalía is back with her new album, Lux. Over eighteen tracks, she trades in the dembow beats that filled her last record Motomami for maximalist orchestral sounds more in line with Björk than Bad Bunny. The album is dense: there's four movements, thirteen languages, arrangements by Caroline Shaw, and a wide breadth of influences – from Benedictine saints to Patti Smith. But despite (or because) all of this, Rosalía has gone on record referring to Lux as, ultimately, a pop album. That's where we come in. On this episode of Switched On Pop, Nate and Reanna put on their tour guide hats to talk all things Lux: its sonic genre-bending, Rosalía’s poetic lyricism, and her hyper-local flamenco influence. Songs discussed: Rosalía – Berghain Rosalía – Bizcochito Rosalía – De Madrugá Rosalía – Mio Cristo Rosalía – La Yugular Björk – Joga Caroline Shaw, Roomful of Teeth – Partita for 8 Voices Rosalía – Sexo, Violencia y Llantas Rosalía – Divinize Rosalía – Porcelana Rosalía – Dios Es Un Stalker The Police – Every Breath You Take Rosalía – La Perla Johann Strauss II – The Blue Danube Drake – Push Ups Rosalía – Sauvignon Blanc Lady Gaga – Grigio Girls Adele – I Drink Wine Rosalía – Focu ‘Ranni Rosalía – Novia Robot Rosalía – La Rumba del Perdón Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Switched on Pop comes from Sonos. Nothing quite makes a holiday gathering pop like turning on the music.
0:07.0	And if you're looking to set the mood, you should check out Sonos. With Sonos, movie nights feel bigger and more cinematic, while holiday parties come alive with music that flows from room to room.
0:19.0	It's the kind of sound that makes a house feel warm and connected during the season.
0:23.8	Want studio quality sound at home?
0:26.5	Explore Sonos speakers, soundbars, and more at sonos.com
0:31.6	and discover how easy it is to build your own whole home audio system.
0:43.6	Stage on the... your own whole home audio system. Welcome to Switch Non Pop. I'm producer Rihanna Cruz.
0:48.0	And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
0:50.1	So a couple of weeks ago, the Spanish pop star Rosalia released the first single off of her new album Lux.
0:58.8	It was a track called Burgine, named after the famous Berlin Nightclub.
1:03.5	And when I heard that title, personally, I imagined like a sweaty techno-unz-unz club banger.
1:10.6	Oh, yeah.
1:11.2	But instead,
1:12.0	we got this.
1:35.3	It's like if Ludwig von Beethoven rolled up to a Berlin techno club. I like that. Berguyen is not unce-unce at all, really. It's more of an operatic, experimental orchestral hodgepodge that features leaders of the avant-garde pop space, Bjork, and Eve two more.
1:50.3	And immediately, I think I speak for the both of us when I say, I had a hunch, Lux, which is out now, as we speak, would be different than anything we've previously heard before.
2:00.2	You know, take one of the big songs from Rosalia's last record,
2:03.3	Motomami, the song Bicochito.
2:05.0	And compare it to, say, the track de Maduga from Lux.
2:22.6	Yeah, where Motto Mami found Rosalia
2:38.4	experimenting and tweaking with the familiar sounds of regga tone and other Latin
2:44.1	American music genres, what we just heard from Lux is something completely different,
	...

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