With ‘Lux’ still sitting in 2nd place on the Spanish album chart, adding four Platinum Records in record time, and with ‘La Perla’ becoming one of the absolute hits of the moment, Rosalía seems focused on developing the world tour of ‘Lux’, which will begin on March 16 in Lyon, France, and will pass through Spain in April over seven dates spread between Madrid and Barcelona (separated by a stop in Lisbon).
Rosalía, who has interrupted her media break by appearing at the recent concert for Palestine at the Palau Sant Jordi, may be more than satisfied with the commercial performance of ‘Lux’, especially because she has stated that she did not expect it to be “an album for the charts” and it has become the best-selling album of her career.
Rosalía worked hard to give interviews during the release of the album, in Spain, Europe, Latin America and the United States, so no one can say that she has not promoted the album. Right now, the album is selling itself, despite the inexplicable lack of stock of the physical editions; It continues at the top of the Spanish chart and will surely return to number 1 when the tour is underway.
But not everything in this life is numbers. Branding and world-building are also important. Rosalía made history with ‘El mal qué’ (2018), taking care of her videography like no one else, turning each video into a national event, and the clips from ‘Motomami’ (2022) were also key to understanding the era, especially that of ‘SAOKO’. However, perhaps the most iconic image that ‘Motomami’ produced was that of their tour, and surely the ‘Lux’ tour will once again leave memorable impressions.
Creating videos no longer seems to be a priority for any artist or record label, as they are tremendously expensive to produce and do not always justify the investment. Many of the biggest recent hits do not have official music videos. This perhaps explains why the only worthy one that has been made for ‘Lux’ is ‘Berghain’, whose task was to “explain” the upcoming album. An amazing clip that barely has 12 million views on YouTube. That of ‘La Perla’, filmed improvised in Miami and lacking a concept, totals 40 million. In both cases they are very good numbers, but not spectacular.
Artists contemporary to Rosalía have pampered the “world-building” with their latest releases, see Charli xcx with ‘Brat’ or Troye Sivan with ‘Something to Give Each Other’. Others have left it in two videos and that’s it, like Lady Gaga with ‘Mayhem’ or Sabrina Carpenter with ‘Man’s Best Friend’. Taylor Swift has NOW announced the clip for ‘Opalite’, only the second from ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ era as strange as it may seem.
It must be emphasized that music video clips are not recorded overnight, but rather require planning. Obviously we prefer two good videos to four bad ones. It’s simply surprising that the only video for ‘Lux’ that reflects the quality of the album came out four months ago, while the album’s promo seems to have stopped. Are we asking too much of artists when shooting a video requires an available team that may not be willing to invest money, energy and time?
Although the clip for ‘La Perla’ was released not even two months ago, the feeling is that only the clip for ‘Berghain’ has given visual weight to the album. While Rosalía rehearses the ‘Lux’ tour, it’s time to wonder if the album’s video clips have really ended up in ‘La Perla’ or if some more await, perhaps for ‘Reliquia’ – the only song not yet a single on the Spanish charts -, ‘Dios es un stalker’ or ‘La Jugular’, given its initial success, or for a collaboration like Carminho’s on ‘Memoria’. For ‘The Rumba of Forgiveness’ we better not even ask. Rosalía, don’t make us wait for the “De-LUX”!
Charging …
