From satanic rock to Rosalía

Half a century ago, around 1975, English-language popular music (this point is worth emphasizing) experienced a creative and supposedly transgressive explosion that seemed to defy the system. In reality, the opposite was happening: turbo-capitalism, in the apt phrase of Professor Gonçal Mayos, misses no opportunity to gain ground. Eager for thrills, the teenagers of the time thus became part of the Great Wheel of Consumption, in this case, that of the record industry, which was undoubtedly at its peak. The satanic aesthetic emerged as a form of banal provocation, accompanied by acne and unruly hair, thanks to groups like Black Sabbath. The influence of the film The Exorcist (1973) and its many more or less clumsy imitations were important. The iconography of those rock groups—inverted crosses, guttural voices, demonic invocations—did not correspond to any literal adherence to Satanism, of course. Generally, it was part of a strategy to generate noise, scandalize elderly women, and consolidate a countercultural identity that, in reality, was simply target commercial. Be that as it may, the references were religious. But over time, that aesthetic lost its pseudo-subversive power. Popular culture assimilated its content, turning it into parodic and completely harmless icons (see, for example, the 2005 animated film Corpse Bride, (by Tim Burton, aimed at a children's audience). Mass culture is self-destructive. Today, a T-shirt with an inverted cross or something like that is about as impressive as a tie. Which is to say, not at all.

Once that infernal vein of coal was exhausted, postmodern spirituality began to manifest itself with languages quite far removed from grand religious narratives. It is in this postmodern scenario that artists like Rosalía have reclaimed Catholic symbolism not as provocation, but as an expressive vehicle that the astute Madonna already explored more than thirty years ago. I have watched with attention, on several occasions, the extraordinary music video of Berghain, which is the first single from the album LuxIn aesthetic terms, it's an impeccable product. If I say it's laden with religious references, I won't be revealing anything new, probably because they're too obvious, too blatant, too tempting. They're part of the consumer culture. fast foodAnd they probably represent the opposite of spiritual contemplation, which by definition requires a silent, slow, inward gaze, not one forced into pleasure. This is not a criticism of the singer Rosalía, an artist with an impeccable career, but of those who make a certain interpretation—let's say— doctrinal of that shift. Catholic aesthetics aren't used to scandalize or mock anything or anyone, but that doesn't mean they have a trajectory that goes beyond the rules of the music consumption game. Whether this might lead to changes in the spiritual behavior of young people in the short or long term, I don't know; given this singer's enormous worldwide popularity, it's certainly not out of the question. Unlike the satanic rock of the seventies, which rejected religion as an oppressive institution, Rosalía approaches Catholicism but does so from a decontextualized and aestheticized perspective. It carries no inherent commitment and, above all, doesn't imply any profound change or transformation. The temptation to think that all of this stems from a search for meaning in an ultra-fragmented world is strong, but it must be put aside.

In his latest book – a reading of the philosopher Simone Weil – Byung-Chul Han reminds us that digitization has accustomed us to having everything – that everything it has to be—"immediately attainable, available, measurable, and consumable." Unlike the profound attention demanded by the spiritual quest, the attention fostered by the Great Wheel of Consumption (including music) is inherently fragmentary, ephemeral, and fungible. These two types of attention are not merely different: they are, in fact, antagonistic. If in the seventies provocation meant invoking the devil with an electric guitar at full volume, today it might mean dressing as a nun. In any case, the great provocation, the supreme provocation that shakes the wheel, is to distance oneself from everything that is "immediately attainable, available, measurable, and consumable." Praying silently in a dark room, and telling no one, is perhaps the most subversive act one can perform today: it strikes at the very heart of the system, which is none other than consumption.