Rosalía Doesn’t Want to Take It Easy

On Lux, her intense and expansive new album, Rosalía pushes beyond the boundaries of pop music. While many artists today embrace a polished pop persona, she stands apart with her unique approach.

Pop Music Trends

Last year, Taylor Swift described herself as a “showgirl,” releasing a short album filled with catchy songs co-produced by Max Martin and Shellback.
The biggest new act of the year might be Huntr/x, the fictional girl group from Netflix’s animated film KPop Demon Hunters.
Demi Lovato, the former Disney star, returned to her roots with “Fast,” a light club track from the album It’s Not That Deep.
MGK, the rapper turned rock artist, tried reinventing himself with the video “Cliché,” performing like a boy-bander seeking a final hit. The shift led to mockery, prompting MGK to clarify in an Instagram reel, saying,
“It’s a pop song, man.”

Rosalía’s Distinctive Path

Unlike many contemporaries, Rosalía is a classically trained flamenco singer from Spain. She gained international recognition in 2018 with El Mal Querer, an album blending flamenco and pop elements. This album also doubled as her thesis project at the renowned Catalonia College of Music.

“El Mal Querer” was full of diaphanous flamenco-pop experiments that marked her unique style.

Her work on Lux shows her refusal to settle for mainstream clichés, offering instead a complex and powerful musical journey.

Summary: Rosalía stands out in contemporary pop by blending flamenco tradition with modern sounds, crafting intense, genre-defying music that challenges pop norms.

The New Yorker — 2025-11-07