Rosalía Is Right: We Should Be Challenged More By the Pop Culture We Consume

In an interview with the Popcast duo of The New York Times, the Spanish singer Rosalía was asked if she thought she was demanding a lot from her audience with Lux, her fourth album. It’s the most critically adored release of 2025 by far, a neo-classical art-pop hybrid sung in 14 languages with influences taken from the lives of various female saints. There is truly nothing else like it out there, and that’s saying something coming from an artist whose flamenco roots have led her to be one of modern music’s most daring experimentalists. Lux is startling but it’s also a challenge, as Popcast noted. In response to their question, she agreed, noting that, ‘The more we are in the era of dopamine, the more I want the opposite.’

In a time where audiences are used to doing everything - working, watching films, listening to music - with their phone stapled to their hand, Rosalía is hoping that her fans will be inspired to focus solely on Lux for an hour. It’s a lot to ask, she admits, but something she feels strongly about. And I agree. Frankly, I was genuinely humbled to hear an artist ask the world to take her work seriously, to put in the work to get it, and to give 100% of our brains to it. How often are we asked that of anyone or anything?

Over the past few years, I have found myself in a curious place in regards to pop culture. I cover it professionally but am also personally devoted to it, having been irrevocably shaped by the films, books, music, etc, I’ve pored over from birth onward. Yet, in the time of AI slop, social media, and algorithmic corruption, I could feel my brain slipping. Maybe COVID lockdown exacerbated things, but I slowly found myself in a growing state of disinterest with a lot of modern entertainment. Every new trend left me cold. Tables of books in shops with hashtags on the covers promised trope-heavy gratification, but every experience felt without nourishment. I got sick of hearing people tell me, ‘it’s not that serious’ or to ‘turn off my brain’ whenever I read or watched something. Every hobby felt gamified, from races to read as many books as possible to listening to podcasts at 2.0 speed to aestheticizing crafts for TikTok views.

I craved heft. I wanted something that actually meant something, a work that felt I was deserving of more than a shrug. Whatever it was, it needed to combat the growing corporate drive towards encouraging audience apathy. We kept seeing reports that streaming services like Netflix were demanding that showrunners create series that were implicitly designed to be half-watched while you did something else. It was indicative of the many battles we’ve lost in the landscape of cultural attention. I haven’t been to the cinema once in several months without seeing someone get their phone out mid-movie. And I get it. How many of us have found ourselves instinctually reaching for our devices in the middle of a conversation? How often have you gone to check just one thing before bed, only to find yourself in a doomscroll spiral that stretches to dawn? To battle that addiction, I needed a cultural deprogramming, something utterly oppositional to the barrage surrounding me.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Gen Z-ers were turning to ‘cozy hobbies’ to help extract themselves from a perennially online life. Analogue activities and crafting, tactile practices that demanded focus and practice, were a welcome contrast to the sound and fury of TikTok or Instagram. It was a philosophy I had already adopted on some level, turning to things like crocheting and crossword puzzles to stop myself from f*cking around on my phone after work. Now, I needed the pop culture version: works of focus, craft, and challenge. Frankly, I wanted a tough time. Cue the many classic novels I’d owned for years but put off reading, fearful it’d feel too much like homework. The same went for the slow and prickly films I’d accumulated, and the albums that couldn’t be zoned out. Truly, it’s been so nutritious.

Rosalía is not the only artist working right now who wants her audience to do more than passively consume. I doubt there are many legitimate writers, musicians, etc, who would ever proudly admit that their agenda is one of slop. But on a corporate level, and amid the tech bros forcing generative AI down our gullets, the goals are more mindless. They want endless intake of cheap #content that can be replicated ad infinitum, an undemanding cycle that is simultaneously addictive and nondescript. And yet, when we look at what captured the zeitgeist in 2025, it’s the artfulness and trust in one’s intelligence that rises above all else: Severance, Sinners, No Other Choice, One Battle After Another, Pluribus.

I feel somewhat defensive about my current agenda to demand more from the pop culture in my life. Every time I have this conversation, I rush to reassure others that it’s totally okay for them to like what they like and that there’s nothing wrong with a comfort watch or speedy trope-laden read. There’s no moral superiority in choosing to read Edith Wharton over the latest romantasy favourite. But I do feel like curiosity is an increasingly underrated quality, and the courage to pursue our passions beyond the comfort of the easy is easily discouraged. It’s easy to pretend that everything is as good as everything else and there’s no pleasure to be found in expanding our horizons. To assert one’s taste is to risk being called a ‘snob.’

But isn’t it a good thing to hearten ourselves and others to be more than what we believe ourselves to be? It certainly made my world bigger. I hope more follow in Rosalía’s footsteps, and more fans find the nerve to get out of their comfort zones. Imagine the joy you’ll feel when you find your new favourite thing and it’s utterly unattached from fads, side-hustles, and optimised #content.