Have you forgotten how to read?
Rosalía is here to help.
Can anyone help me pinpoint when the collective malfunction happened? When so many of us stopped being able to read books? I started reading a children’s book recently and it took me three weeks, on and off, to finish it. I had to pay a fine at the library. On The Magician’s Nephew, of all things! A Narnia novel on a shelf low enough for toddlers to reach it.
That I finished it at all feels like a miracle, because my attention span struggles to experience things in wholes. Culture caters to brevity these days: EPs and singles outperform albums—and albums on the whole are luxuries for pop stars whose A&Rs want them to make individual songs optimised for streaming, hookish, short and easy to repeat. I remember the furore when someone on social media suggested a way to break down Martin Scorsese’s epic movie The Irishman into episodes. I’ve heard rumors that Netflix have asked some of their creators to tell, not show, when it comes to major plot points—verbalizing them for the crowd who are scrolling on their phone and binging TV shows at the same time.
I first heard Rosalía’s new album Lux a few weeks ago, sat in a room at her record label in darkness with my phone off. Its song lyrics were displayed in English, red text on a white screen, alongside one of the 13 languages in which the album is performed. Lux is an exercise that warrants this kind of environment, so much so that Rosalía herself told the New York Times’ Popcast that she’s “absolutely,” asking a lot of her audience. “But I think that the more we are in the era of dopamine, the more I want the opposite.”
A good modern pop record is punchy, or so we’re told. And there are many great ones: the slender, 37 minutes of Lorde’s Pure Heroine, or Bowie’s six-song-long Station to Station. But we reached a point in the midst of the streaming boom where longer felt better. We had the endless Drake album and that slightly monstrous thing by Zayn. Taylor Swift’s albums grow limbs after release with more spin-offs and add-ons. Their intentions feel a little different to Lux, which feels whole and unspliceable. After hearing it, the fact that it even spawned singles was a surprise to me. Rosalía’s one of the few pop stars who can command such respect, and unbridled time, from their audience. Lux takes itself so incredibly seriously because it deserves that respect.
Now, whenever I text someone and I get a single tick, I don’t assume their phone is off. I assume they’re dead. But for that 60 phoneless minutes with Lux, I was resuscitated instead—brought back to life and reminded why I love pop music so much in the first place. I turned it on again on Friday and cried to “Divinize” as I walked to therapy.
Friend of i-D Sebastian Croft is known for his acting chops, but he’s been working on music for a while now. We’re grateful to have been blessed enough to hear some, including his new single “Tokyo,” which is lovely and out today. Luv u Bash!
I asked him:
“My note book where I write random thoughts/lyrics/journal. Wired headphones. A tape recorder. A magazine cover I did (vain but I have no where else to put it), and the book I’m currently reading which is Dubliners by James Joyce. It was recommended to me by my good friend Sean Hewitt (read his book Open, Heaven if you haven’t already).”
I went to my friend’s place recently, and he’d started using the hollowed out carcasses of used Loewe candles as coffee mugs.
Speaking of long and ambitious albums, I’m still waiting to find out where the new Joanna Newsom record is. There were rumors she had one ready to go maybe two years ago but idk what happened.
I caved and bought the insane Japanese poster for Christiane F.. When thinking about where to put it, I was reminded of a friend who put graphic Peter Hujar photographs in his kitchen.
I’m having pangs of homesickness for Scotland and this TikTok girl who has pasta with pesto for dinner most nights is curing me. A true national treasure.
Last Days, an opera based on the Gus Van Sant film about the days preceding Kurt Cobain’s death, is returning to London’s Royal Opera House next month. I saw it first a few years ago and thought it weird and amazing. My pal Jake Dunn is taking over the reins of the part inspired by Kurt.
