The Vatican has shared praise for Rosalía’s “provocative” songs about faith on her new album ‘Lux’.
The album marked the fourth LP from the singer, is inspired by the stories of female saints, and sees her sing in 13 different languages throughout the tracklist, including Arabic, Hebrew and Latin. The title itself is Latin for ‘Light’, and the themes in the record centre around religion, enlightenment, and a yearning to be more connected to the spiritual world.
Now, the Vatican’s culture minister, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, has joined names like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Madonna in sharing praise for the singer, and celebrated her exploration of religion throughout the songs.
Speaking to Spanish news agency EFE (via The Independent), the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education said: “When a creator like Rosalía speaks of spirituality, it means that she captures a profound need in contemporary culture to approach spirituality, to cultivate an inner life.”
On top of that, a bishop of Sant Feliu de Llobregat (which encompasses Rosalía’s Spanish hometown of Sant Esteve Sesrovires) has also shared his approval for the album and its themes.
In an open letter, highlighted by The Independent, Bishop Xabier Gómez García highlighted how Rosalía’s grandmother often comes to mass, and said that while some of the new songs are “provocative”, on the whole, the singer “speaks with absolute freedom and without hang-ups about what she feels God to be, and the desire, the thirst (to know God).”
“When I listened to Lux and Rosalía speaking about the context of her album and the creative process, I found myself faced with a process and a work that transcended the musical,” he added. “Here was a spiritual search through the testimonies of women of immense spiritual maturity.”
The outlet also shares that a professor of humanities at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University called Victoria Cirlot shared approval for the record too, particularly for its “ability to introduce complex religious concepts to a wider audience”.
Speaking about the lyrical inspiration and multi-lingual approach to ‘Lux’, Rosalía 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’.”
Opening up about her desire to understand new cultures through her language learning on the LP, she explained: “I love travelling, 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.”
Shortly after it was released, ‘LUX’ became the most streamed LP in a day on Spotify by a Spanish-speaking female artist.
The album was given a glowing five-star review by NME, and celebrated as having pushed her sound into adventurous new horizons.
“Lux’ contains not just whole worlds, but astral planes, bridging the gap between Earth and whatever you believe heaven to be,” the review read. “[It] is an album that asks a lot of you, particularly spanning 18 tracks and one hour in length. But give it what it demands, and it will reward you many times over.
“It is an astonishing record – one that continuously stops you dead in your tracks, encourages curiosity, and builds a new world for you to dive into, while connecting to the sounds of all of Rosalía’s previous releases.”
