A few days ago, Rosalía’s new album, Lux, was released. The new musical project of the superstar has attracted attention for a number of reasons, and some are calling it a work of artistic genius.

The album is refreshing to listen to and creates a sense of disruption from what is commonly labelled as the “hit of the day”. Creativity is evident in Lux, with the fusion of a wide range of musical genres, notably polyphonic choirs, harmonies produced by the London Symphony Orchestra, and synthesizers. There is also lyricism and touches of flamenco in Rosalía's sweetness. Lux is made of 15 songs in its digital version, and the singer uses 15 different languages to express her new ideas.

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'Berghain' and the longing for the divine

But her new work is not only special because of its soundtrack, but also because its lyrics explore spirituality and the desire for transcendence. In an interview with Billboard, Rosalía mentioned that this new album hides the desire to resonate with ideas from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. There are many religions in the world and one can learn things from all of them, she says. Some days ago, in a podcast in her mother tongue Catalana, Rosalía said: ‘I have a desire within me that I know this world cannot satisfy.’ Could it be that this longing is hidden behind Berghain, a broken heart that knows it was created for something more? There is probably a lot of that in her songs. In some of them, you can hear the desperate cry of someone who knows they were made for something more and who is tired of the mediocrity and broken promises that the pleasures of the world offer.

Behind Lux, we glimpse the exhaustion of a soul that has already tried everything: fame, the development of talent, and the praise of men. Yet, the melody continues to resonate within, whispering that she was made for something more.

A genuine search for real spirituality

On the cover of the new album, Rosalia appears dressed in white, wearing a veil. It should be mentioned tough that her album represents a search for spirituality without religion or dogma. Unlike other artists who have tried to hint at spirituality to promote their music, this is not seen as a mockery of religion - like Bad Bunny's song Baticano. It feels like a genuine search. The tension between the human and the divine appears constantly. The album is a mixture of the secular and the sacred.

In certain songs, there is a sense of confusion about the spiritual, an awareness of being inferior to an omnipotent being. This is notable in one of her songs: Dios es un Stalker (God is a Stalker). In Mio Cristo (My Christ), she expresses a thirst for spiritual communion. In La Rumba del Perdón (The Rumba of Forgiveness), she extols universal values that come to us from common grace, such as forgiveness, reconciliation, and understanding in the face of human failings. At times, she exhibits her heart's struggle for purity, recognises the tension between the spiritual and the carnal, and reveals a certain nostalgia for the sacred that has been drowned out in our culture by the exaltation of the secular. Does Lux represent the search for true Light?

Art as an expression of humanity’s need for God

R.C. Sproul wrote that for art to be considered art, it must contain these three elements: it must be true, it must be beautiful, and it must be good. Art is often an indicator of the times in which we live. We recognise the spirit of the age through the music we listen to, the films we watch, and the books we read. Art is something like a thermometer of the cultural moment we find ourselves in, but also of the spiritual moment.

There is a clear need for spirituality in our time, but this spirituality that attracts us is one without organised religion. We might ask ourselves, what does this type of art reveal about the spiritual longing of our generation? A longing for the divine, a need to escape from the everyday, from technology, and to return to marvelling at what lies beyond the visible world, a thirst to return art to the artist par excellence, a nostalgia for the sacred. It seems that in our post-sacred, post-truth and post-God world, there is a collective need to escape from digital noise and return. The art of our time reveals a longing without an object, a thirst that does not know its name, like Paul's unknown God in Athens.

He is not far away

Augustine once wrote: ‘You made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ Lux by Rosalia is a genuine cry from a heart that, after having achieved what was supposed to bring happiness and fulfilment, realises that it has lost something it has not been able to find. Lux appears as a small ray of light, which is close to God and at the same time far away, but never so far away that it cannot be reached, because in reality God is not far from us (Acts 17:27).

The thirst for the eternal is hidden behind the verses; her album is a work of art that reflects divine beauty, but without the personal God of the Bible. Lux sets to music, without realising it, the words that C.S. Lewis wrote decades ago: ‘If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’ Lux leaves us with some lessons worth treasuring: that not everything that sounds spiritual is truly holy, but that all art that seeks the divine is an opportunity to point to Jesus, the true light.

‘In him was life, and that life was the light of men’ (John 1:4).

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