Rosalía has revealed that she sings in 13 different languages on her new album, ‘Lux’.
In a new interview with the New York Times, the musician revealed that she spent two years learning how to write and sing convincingly in other languages. The album features Rosalía’s native Spanish but also Catalan, English, Latin, Sicilian, Ukrainian, Arabic, German and more.
Fans were expecting something completely different to her last after Rosalía shared in August that her next album would not sound like her last LP. She told ELLE: “The rhythm [of the music industry] is so fast. And the sacrifice, the price to pay, is so high. The driving force that leads you to continue making music, to continue creating, has to come from a place of purity.”
Details of the new album emerged earlier this month (October 21), when Rosalía confirmed her new project, ‘LUX’, would be released in November, the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Motomami’. The album – her fourth studio record – will be released on November 7 via Columbia Records, and you can pre-order/pre-save it here.
Speaking about her multi-lingual approach to the album, the musician told the New York Times: “It’s a lot of trying to understand how other languages work…it’s a lot of intuition and trying to be like, ‘I’m going to just write and let’s see how these will sound in another language.’”
She told the publication she had spent a lot of time on Google translate as well as speaking with professional translators — “If I rhyme this with this, does this make sense?” — she said she would ask them. She also worked with teachers who coached her phonetically on how to pronounce words and phrases.
Speaking about her desire to understand new cultures through the language learning on the album, she explained: “I love traveling, I love learning from other humans. Why would I not try to learn another language and try to sing in another language and expand the way I can be a singer or a musician or an artist? The world is so connected.”
Rosalía has teamed up with Björk and Yves Tumor for the lead single ‘Berghain’ from her new album this week (October 27). Rosalía and Björk had previously teamed up back in 2023 for the duet ‘Oral’.
The orchestral ‘Berghain’– taking its name from the iconic techno club in Berlin – has lyrics in German, Spanish and English and heavy classical influences.
Rosalía’s voice is at the forefront in the first half as she sings in German and Spanish over dramatic strings. About halfway through, Björk – who Rosalía also worked with on the 2023 charity single ‘Oral’ – comes in singing, “The only way to save us is through divine intervention,” and Yves Tumor takes over for the outro, repeating, “I’ll fuck you till you love me.”
The German lyrics sung by the choir, “Seine Angst ist meine Angst, Seine Wut ist meine Wut, Seine Liebe ist meine Liebe, Sein Blut ist mein Blut,” translate to “His fear is my fear, his rage is my rage, his love is my love, his blood is my blood.”
In her interview with the New York Times, Rosalía also opened up about working with Björk on the song, saying: “She is my favourite woman and artist. I think we met through Pablo, El Guincho [Rosalía’s former producing partner]. We went to have some tapas in Barcelona. And I thought that she was the most fascinating human I’ve ever met because her train of thought was so different than I’ve ever seen before. It was just an instant crush of admiration.
“We stayed in touch and I just felt like with this album, if this was such a strong, demanding musical exercise, if I was doing it good enough, maybe, I would send it to her, and if it was in the right level, maybe then she couldn’t say no.”
In the three years since she released ‘Motomami’, her third album, Rosalía shared a collaborative EP with Rauw Alejandro – her then-fiancé – and released the standalone single ‘Tuya’ in 2023, and worked with artists including Ralphie Choo and BLACKPINK’s Lisa.
The singer, who had a cameo in the 2019 movie Pain And Glory, is also set to venture into acting by joining the cast of HBO’s Euphoria for its upcoming third season. She said earlier this year, “This is my first job, eh? Well, I’m learning, I’m figuring it out. I’m trying not to forget my lines, but it’s been really inspiring being beside these amazing actors and actresses. My first time, figuring it out, trying to have fun with it, play around, improvise.”
NME gave ‘Motomami’ five stars, writing: “Rosalía isn’t so much carving out her own lane as building her own ultra-modern, super-bendy sonic motorway. It’s one you’ll want to hurtle down again and again.”