In, say, 1990, when Madonna released “Vogue,” there was very much a concrete “mainstream” to bring something “underground” to. In 2025, the mainstream is all but nonexistent, with so many fractured realities thanks to the proverbial algorithm. And all one needs to do is “tap in” or “tap out” of whatever portal they want in order to access a certain reality. ROSALÍA’s hold over “the world” has, in part, stemmed from jumping across these various realities with her genre-melding and -bending music. Never has that been more apparent than on “Berghain,” the lead single from her fourth album, Lux. Named after the famed Berlin nightclub of the same name, this is at least part of the reason ROSALÍA opts to sing the song in German. Granted, there are plenty of iconic operas sung in that language as well (namely, Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle).
Whatever ROSALÍA’s “true” motives are for giving this level of free advertising to the nightclub, there’s no denying that its association as being a place where one can “be themselves” (or rather, the most debauched version of themselves) while freely mixing with others of all stripes has a kind of correlative meaning to what ROSALÍA aims to achieve with her own music. Which is, as she stated of this particular album and song, to “create a radiant world where sounds, language and culture fuse as one.” No matter how disjointedly.
Funnily enough, this intention of hers represents the frequent mention “these days” about mourning the loss of a monoculture (especially when whatever is left of such a concept boils down to Taylor Swift). Even though, for many groups and people who were stuck on the fringes for so long, the loss of monoculture has been a blessing. Even if, in the process, it’s actually sought to further “de-unify” people as everyone is able to live in their own version of existence. Ergo, what constitutes “noteworthy” music, film and pop culture. There are even those who would refute the notion that what ROSALÍA has done with “Berghain” is extremely noteworthy. A once-in-a-blue-moon kind of genre-bending that few others have managed to achieve with the same kind of success. One such prime example being Björk, who ten studio albums into her thirty-plus-year career, has explored genre as few other musicians have (sorry, Beyoncé). Or, more to the point, explored it while still being able to make it “accessible” enough to achieve chart success. So it’s no wonder that she first teamed up with ROSALÍA in 2023 for a single called “Oral,” intended to raise funds to combat open-pen fish farming in Iceland. The collaboration was expectedly beautiful, featuring such poetic lyrics as, “Your mouth floats above my bed at night/My own private moon” (though some might argue there are many lyrics, including that one, to the song that sound almost AI-generated).
By and large, however, the lyrics aren’t exactly “diverse,” with Björk and ROSALÍA mostly repeating, “There’s a line there, I can’t cross it.” A somewhat ironic statement coming from them, considering they’ve both crossed just about every genre line there is, relying mostly on their music rather than their lyrics to do that. With “Berghain,” however, ROSALÍA wields both to push boundaries of genre, melding German, Spanish and English lyrics to add to the overall “amalgam” effect of the song.
As for the video that accompanies it, ROSALÍA’s aesthetic choice to include an orchestra playing the music as she performs such quotidian activities as ironing, making the bed, going to a doctor’s appointment and trying to pawn a piece of jewelry (a gold heart with a ruby at the center that has some overt sentimental value) only heightens the idea that her intention is to make this kind of music “normal to normies.”
Directed by Nicolás Méndez (who previously worked with ROSALÍA on the video for “TKN” and most recently directed Camila Cabello’s “I Luv It”), the “everydayness” of the visuals quickly shifts around the two-minute-twenty-one-second mark, when she returns to her apartment after a fruitless day spent mostly trying to see if her “heart” is worth anything. Reentering the space cautiously, the second she steps over the threshold, she is transformed into “Snow White.” This indicated by the red bow tied in headband form over her black hair, the wallpaper that suddenly looks just like a creepy forest and the sudden barrage of animals that approach her. One of them being a bird that is apparently Björk, deciding to communicate her verse contribution in her avian form. That chilling verse being, “This is divine intervention/The only way to save us is through divine intervention/The only way I will be saved is through divine intervention.”
In the final scenes of the video, the frenetic montage (shown, at times, in black and white) also includes the now twice-repeated image of a sugar cube in coffee. This meant to allude to the verse, “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 the heat melts me/I know how to disappear/When you come is when I leave”). The metaphorical suggestion here being that, in order to “meld” with a man (including Jesus/God)—the person she’s clearly pining for in this song—ROSALÍA finds herself dissolving entirely. In another sense, too, this applies to how she’s often felt when it comes to being “classified” by the music industry. On the one hand wanting to fit in as “pop,” but on the other knowing full well that the Establishment will never wholly view her music that way. Unless, of course, she gives in/bends to their will entirely. Allowing her own unique style to “dissolve into the coffee like sugar,” as it were. There’s also a loose nod to the Mary Poppins adage, “Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down/In a most delightful way.” An adage that can, of course, be applied to how ROSALÍA has “insidiously” snuck in multiple off-the-beaten-path musical styles into the “mainstream.” Which, again, doesn’t really exist anymore.
Indeed, ROSALÍA herself could hardly be classified as “mainstream” by the former standards of what that meant, even if she is considered as such via the present definition of it: number of views and streams. “Berghain,” with all its violence and “all-over-the-mapness,” is no exception. In fact, one might say that ROSALÍA’s musical “all-over-the-mapness” is a reflection of the era we live in now. One in which brainrot, never being “turned on to the same thing” and living in totally alternate realities from one another are just par for the course. And yet, “Seine Angst ist meine Angst/Seine Wut ist meine Wut/Seine Liebe ist meine Liebe/Sein Blut ist mein Blut” (“His fear is my fear/His anger is my anger/His love is my love/His blood is my blood”).
As the track grows more violent in tone with the repeated assertion from Yves Tumor, “I’ll fuck you till you love me” (this taken from something Mike Tyson said to a reporter circa 1995), that phrase isn’t just directed at the object of ROSALÍA’s (seemingly unrequited) affection, but even perhaps at listeners who have yet to fully “embrace” her. This now includes the classical and opera music purists who haven’t received “Berghain” as warmly as others. Even so, ROSALÍA is doing everything she can to convey the transformative power of listening to her “musical mutation.”
With that in mind, the video ends with ROSALÍA “mutating” into a bird herself (perhaps flying off to join Bird Björk somewhere (not to be confused with Swan [Dress] Björk), something foretold by the white feathers glued to the corners of her eyes like complementary lashes. The metamorphosis occurs right after a close-up of the golden heart locket no longer looking damaged and dented in the way it did before. So perhaps what ROSALÍA is trying to say is that healing can come through transformation, through embracing change. And “Berghain” heralds another big one for the music industry, not to mention the definition of “mainstream.”
