140. We’re not that different
I.
After a weekend in Valencia, I’m on the plane back to Amsterdam. This seems like the perfect moment to listen to Rosalía — to cling to Spain. I don’t know Rosalía, but her new album LUX is a true global pop sensation. It’s receiving rave reviews and the record sold out in no time.
On the plane, I’m taken by surprise. I hadn’t expected this mix of musical styles and languages. Bombastic orchestras enchant like old Disney films. In perfect doses, the electronic music element comes into play. Sometimes it sounds fragile, sometimes epic. Rosalía herself sings mainly in Spanish, but also in twelve other languages. The ambition is palpable. I understand little of it, but I feel it all.
Later, I read the translated lyrics and realise that the themes Rosalía sings about are just as epic as the music itself. She studied saints and, on this album, tries to put herself in their shoes. The songs describe her search for religion and solace. “The fears I have, others have too,” she tells Billboard. “That’s where I find beauty: the realisation that we sometimes think we’re different, but we’re not.”
Rosalía doesn’t overdo the religious theme, however. Earthly troubles are given their due too. On La Perla, a waltz plays as she tears her ex-fiancé to shreds. “A gold medal for the biggest arsehole,” she sings. “When it comes to disappointments, you’ve earned a place on the podium. The local disappointment, national heartbreaker. An emotional terrorist, the biggest disaster in the world.”
Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti is one of the most beautiful tracks on the album. In this aria, you can hear the incredible range of Rosalía’s angelic voice. Sauvignon Blanc is a beautiful love song. And if Magnolias doesn’t give you goosebumps, you’re made of stone.
LUX is also a manifesto for the humanity of music. Rosalía makes this a key point herself, notes music critic Gee Derrick. “There is no AI,” says Rosalía in an interview with France Inter. “This is a human album.” And to Zane Lowe of Apple Music, she says that all instruments must sound tangible: “You can feel that there are people in the music.”
According to Derrick, Rosalía is thus heralding the next evolution of music: being human as an act of resistance. What can you do against the rise of AI music? Focus aggressively on the human element. “For Rosalía, that means acoustic instruments, choirs and orchestras,” says Derrick. “It boils down to making and producing music in a way that requires people to come together, with all the imperfections and personalities that a computer can never reproduce.”
- - -II.
Guillermo del Toro adapted Pinocchio for the screen three years ago and is now back with a new film in which a lifeless figure comes to life: Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s book of the same name was published in 1818 and has captured the imagination for centuries. The story is about the ambitious scientist Victor Frankenstein, who stitches together human body parts and brings the creature to life. “Now I know what it feels like to be God!”, exclaims Frankenstein in the 1931 film adaptation.
In Del Toro’s version, it is not so much about creating life, but about stopping death.
In this film, too, the scientist does not know what to do with his creation. He had never considered what he would do if his experiment succeeded. He locks the creature away, chained beneath his castle. Frustrated that his experiment isn’t learning fast enough and frustrated by his own shortcomings as a mentor, Frankenstein becomes increasingly aggressive and hateful. The scientist can no longer get rid of it, for the figure he has brought to life turns out to be immortal.
For those who really cannot read between the lines, Del Toro has it spoken aloud to Frankenstein in the film: you are the monster. The creature itself, on the other hand, is innocence personified. Del Toro makes the creature more human than ever, played with verve by Jacob Elordi, who navigates beautifully between menacing and sympathetic, without making him seem feeble-minded.
One could certainly make a few comments about the script, which at times seems to skip a few steps. But ultimately, I find it a successful adaptation of the Frankenstein story, in which trauma and loneliness give way to warmth and resignation. With visuals to die for.
- - -PS.
The National singer Matt Berninger used to jot things down in notebooks. Until the blank pages started to weigh on him. Eventually, he found a new way to jot down his thoughts: playing baseball.
Lit Hub asked the National Book Award finalists how they deal with writer’s block, what their favourite books are and what they would do if they weren’t writers.
77-year-old Theo Jansen is still going strong. He is still building impressive beach creatures that wander along the Dutch coast in the wind. Below you can see his latest moving sculptures.
- - -Swedish YouTuber and musician Mattias Krantz buys an octopus at the fish market. Not to eat it, but to teach it to play the piano.
- - -You’ve just read blog post №140, written during the week of 10 to 16 November 2025. Subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll receive it in your inbox every Sunday, free of charge.