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In a world where art is being threatened by machines, musicians are reaching further and further into what really makes us human - matching the public's increased appetite for emotionally honest music that acknowledges both the past and present.

And so lays the perfect scene for someone like Rosalía to shine.

There are artists you listen to.

And then there are artists who seem to rearrange your brain chemistry slightly.

Rosalía belongs very firmly in the second category.

If you’ve somehow escaped her orbit so far, she’s a Spanish singer from Catalonia who began in flamenco and then proceeded to absolutely obliterate the idea that artists need to stay inside neat little genre boxes. Flamenco, reggaetón, hyperpop, bachata, industrial sounds, electronic music, whispered confessions, religious imagery, internet chaos — Rosalía somehow folds it all together into something that feels simultaneously ancient and futuristic.

And honestly? Nobody else really sounds like her.

Her newest album, LUX, was the named one of the top two best-reviewed albums in the world in 2025, along with Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos. But really, it feels less like a normal album release and more like stepping inside some strange, beautiful fever dream built out of language, devotion, femininity and art history.

On LUX, she works across more than a dozen languages, including Spanish, Catalan, English, Latin, Arabic, Mandarin, Ukrainian and German. Which sounds completely ridiculous until you listen to it and realise it somehow works.

Berghain

Let's check out the pièce de résistance of her new Lux album - Berghain. (If you know, you know... but if you don't know, it's a very well known, dark techno club in Berlin - all black would be the fit.)

Performed at the Brit Awards this year, she begins with opera, wearing a dress evoking Las Meninas. What a way to start a pop song, about a German techno club!

A choir chants in German "His fear is my fear / His rage is my rage / His love is my love / His blood is my blood." while she sings in operatic head voice:

Yo sé muy bien lo que soy
Ternura pa'l café
Solo soy un terrón de azúcar
Sé que me funde el calor
Sé desaparecer
Cuando tú vienes es cuando me voy

I know very well what I am
Tenderness for coffee
I'm just a sugar cube
I know that the heat melts me
I know how to disappear
When you come, that's when I leave

It combines profound yearnings, devotion, loneliness and heartache... then after an other-worldly cameo from Björk we're chaotically launched into a deeply hedonic techno trance. She seems to tap into something darkly universal, and it's hard to look away!

Speaking of hard to look away...

Her performances look like moving paintings

Watching her perform often feels less like watching a concert and more like watching live contemporary art.

She references fine art constantly — religious paintings, sculpture, fashion photography, performance art, classical composition.

There are moments where she looks like she’s stepped out of a Renaissance painting. Then suddenly there are motorbikes, distorted autotune vocals, sharp choreography and chaotic hypermodern energy.

Sacred and profane. Beautiful and ugly. Minimal and excessive.

She plays in those contrasts constantly.

And visually, she’s incredibly disciplined.

Great art interpreted for the internet age

Rosalía doesn't just copy and mimic great art - she converts and adapts an interpretation for a new audience. Here, she performs la perla as Venus de Milo. Aphrodite both honoured and reimagined, packaged in a very shareable short clip.

Where to start...

Rosalía has somehow become one of the biggest artists in the world while still remaining genuinely experimental.

She’ll release a heartbreak song that sounds devastatingly tender and then immediately follow it with something chaotic and unserious.

One minute she’s invoking Catholic mysticism. The next she’s singing about motorbikes and chewing gum.

And weirdly, that contradiction feels very modern.

Because most people are contradictions. We contain high art and trash. Spiritual longing and memes. Profound emotion and absolute nonsense.

So where do you begin with an artist like this? Here's a song to check out from each album, to get a feel for the range and evolution of this incredible artist:

Los Ángeles (2017)

• Catalina (avant-garde flamenco)

El Mal Querer (2018)

• Pienso en tu mirá (flamenco pop)

Motomami (2022)

• Despechá (merengue)

Lux (2025)

• Reliquia (orchestral pop)

And if you end up slightly confused, emotionally overwhelmed, and suddenly wanting to wear enormous earrings while wandering through a cathedral?

Congratulations.

You get it.

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