A world prostrate before Rosalía

The phenomenon Rosalía has long transcended Spanish borders and extended its influence to all corners of the planet, but with the publication of its latest album, ‘Lux’its impact has multiplied. Last December, the ‘Financial Times’ included her in its list of “influential people of the year”the only Spanish in a relationship that included, among others, also the singer Bad Bunnythe actors Cynthia Erivo (‘Wicked’) y Stephen Graham (‘Adolescence’), the CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huangthe mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani or the writer Margaret Atwood. “By creating an album that is nothing like its predecessors, he has achieved one of the most moving reinventions of pop, and has released a challenge to his colleagues,” wrote the London newspaper.

EL PERIÓDICO makes a trip around the globe to discover the traces of the artist from Sant Esteve Sesrovires on the planet.

FRANCE

In France, his concerts have become viral events that bring together thousands of people of all ages. In the country where the consumption of culture is almost a question of identity, attending a Catalan concert is an unavoidable event.

His team knows that conquering the French public, strongly linked in recent years to rapelectronic music and afrobeat, is key to its international strategy. Hence his tour began in Lyonand in its staging incorporate French references, such as Joan of Arc or the Mona Lisa, the star painting of the Louvre Museum.

In her music, Rosalía also includes nods to France with the song ‘Sauvignon Blanc’ or ‘Jeanne’, a song that only appears on her physical album and that revisits the story of Joan of Arc with a liturgical solemnity.

Offstage, the Catalan has managed to carve out a place for herself in the front row of the prestigious Paris Fashion Week. At each Fashion Week his appearance is received with the expectation reserved only for the big international stars. Furthermore, his success in France is more than just a conquest, taking into account that the Spanish music industry continues to be a minority on the country’s streaming platforms, such as Spotify France, where his songs have managed to sneak into lists such as ‘Top Global’.

ITALIA

In Italy, Rosalía’s songs have been playing on the radio for a long time, naturally embedded between Anglo-Saxon pop, Latin urban pop and national production. Years ago they stopped sounding like a foreign rarity to become a recognizable presencealmost expected, on certain music stations, in specialized programs and in those nighttime slots in which the country has always had a good ear for what comes from outside.

The popularity of the Catalan artist, which has grown throughout the world, also found fertile ground here from ‘Malamente’, ‘Con Altura’ and ‘Desphá’. Since then, his name has been established in the country, and not only in the music circuit. His latest album, with imagery loaded with religious and liturgical referenceshas also aroused curiosity especially in catholic environmentseven well-known priests close to the Vatican.

Proof of this interest was the enormous expectation generated by his recent concert in Milan: sold out tickets, and a city awaiting the event as happens with the great nights of European pop. The performance, however, had to be interrupted due to food poisoning that forced Rosalía to leave the stage before the end of the show.

The episode reinforced the perception that part of the public and Italian critics have of her. Many reviews, especially in specialized media and among those who were there, were not negative; On the contrary, there were those who read the decision as a show of honesty: the ability, rare in a pop star, to display without artifice also the fragility.

GERMANY

Rosalía’s landing in Berlin It is predestined to enter the emblematic. The chosen day is May Daya date that in the German capital has been identified for some years with all types of marches, from union marches to neo-Nazi marches or pitched battles between the black bloc or antifa and the riot police. Everything fits into the Revolutionary May Day, which takes place among the multiethnic and now gentrified districts of Kreuzberg y Friedrichshain. In that area there is also the most emblematic cathedral of techno, Berghainwhich gives the title to the first piece revealed at the end of 2025 of what later became ‘Lux’.

The concert will not take place, however, in the famous Berlin nightclub where Rosalía, the Icelandic Björk and the American Yves Tumor dazzled the world with their advancement, but in the Uber Arena. It is a modern and huge multi-purpose pavilion, also in Friedrichshain, whose technology and capacity are probably more suitable than the old Berghain for the media deployment that “Lux” requires.

It offers another element to round out the package of emblematic resonances linked to Berlin: it is face to face with the East Side Gallerya 1.3 kilometer stretch that still stands wall that split the city. After the fall of the traumatic division, artists from all over the world printed their graffiti on it. The best known among them is the famous ‘screw kiss’ between the Soviet and East German leaders, Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker, painted in 1991 by Dmitri Vrubel and revitalized in successive restoration operations.

UNITED KINGDOM

Rosalía’s influence on the United Kingdom has not stopped growing in recent years. ‘Lux’ debuted at number 4 on the UK Official Albums Charts, the official list that classifies works according to their streaming consumption, physical sales and digital downloads. The Catalan became the first Spanish female artist to achieve this position and established itself as one of the most influential international stars in the country. Their previous album, ‘Motomami’, reached number 42 in this same ranking just four years ago.

Another example of its consolidation in the British market was its performance in the BRIT Awardsa gala in which he won the award for best international artist ahead of other stars such as Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift o Lady Gaga. The performance of ‘Berghain’ on stage at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, including a surprise appearance by Björk, left the presenter of the ceremony, Jack Whitehall, speechless. “Without a doubt, it has been one of the best performances of the Brits [Awards] that I have ever seen,” he said.

For some of the country’s most renowned music experts, ‘Lux’ has been the most impressive album of the year. In an article in the newspaper ‘The Times’, the critic Will Hodgkinson highlights the Catalan’s ability to reject “short hooks” and “sticky choruses” that capture the listener and guarantee a large number of reproductions. “Like Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ or Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’, ‘Lux’ is a work that demands a total immersioninstead of being a soundtrack for dancing or washing dishes,” he says.

The daring to sing in 14 languages and his ability to shape the limits of commercial music, entering the world of opera and classical music – with the participation, among other collaborators, of the London Symphony Orchestra – has led critics and the British public to fall at his feet. Rosalía has broken with the stereotypical image of the Latin pop musician and has caused a sensation with her experimental and innovative style.

It is premature to specify the musical impact of ‘Lux’ on Latin Americawhere the musicians are still processing Rosalía’s turn in her latest album. What there is ample evidence of is the relationship she has with regional references of his own generation. They were already listening to it carefully before it developed its own line of the horizon of artistic possibilities.

Rosalía assures in ‘Reliquia’ that “heaven was born in Buenos Aires”a recognition of his sentimental relationship with the Argentine capitalwhere he has numerous interlocutors, including Thunder, Emilia Mernes y Lali Esposito. Some popular singers pay attention to the scenic power and visual component of their videos. Rosalía especially praised Milo Jwho, at 19 years old, is perhaps the singer-songwriter who shares with the Catalan the need to constantly renew himself.

‘Los Ángeles’, ‘El Mal Quer’ and ‘Motomami’ have also been listened to with pleasure in Chile, where the mixture of genres is consolidated as a way of experiencing creativity. Young Cister has highlighted the ability of innovation from Rosalia Talk It has also praised its innovations. The same as My Pride. The influence of the author of ‘The Pearl’ on Colombia It has different edges. J Balvin He was one of his collaborators in ‘With height’. But that was a relationship between equals. According to specialists, Rosalía’s mark must be sought in those who try to open new paths in which pop and urban music mix. Greeicy has expressed his admiration, although it is difficult to detect any assimilation beyond the wiggling and a certain textual audacity.

Between July and August, Rosalía will perform in Colombia, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. Tickets are already completely sold out, proof of the expectation y regional devotion. In certain musical environments, meanwhile, ‘Lux’ illuminates and at the same time presents a major challenge: a record production of that magnitude is impossible to achieve. ‘Berghain’ sounds like a project from another planet in more limited production environments.

Rosalía’s influence is also felt on the Asian continent. Even far from the fury that arouses in other latitudes, the Catalan artist has achieved some milestones in markets as difficult for Western artists as the chino. In 2024, for example, she became the first Spanish artist to be nominated for the China Year Awards. It was due to his collaboration with Lisamember of the Korean group Blackpinkwith the theme ‘New Woman’.

Rosalía’s winks to Asia They have been constant in their career. One of the 14 languages ​​in which she sings on ‘Lux’ is Mandarinin the song ‘Robot Bride’, in which she attacks the sex doll market and the search for feminine perfection. And at the Lisbon concert, on April 8, he included the influencer Marcelo Wang in the confessional and had him teach her how to say the phrase ‘you are a pearl’ in Chinese.

But the most constant reference in his work is towards Japana country he has visited on many occasions. In the song from his latest album ‘Tuya’, he includes the sound of a kotoa traditional string instrument, while in ‘Motomami’ it includes the song ‘Hentai’ – which in Japanese designates the genre of anime with erotic content–, talks about the flower of ‘sakura‘ (cherry tree), recorded the video for ‘Candy’ at a karaoke in Shibuyaand made the choreography of ‘Chicken Teriyaki’ go viral.

Subscribe to continue reading