Media trends: September 2016

Music

After three years, Grammy award-winning English indie rock band Bastille are releasing a follow-up to their breakthrough album, Bad Blood. Their second album, Wild World, will be available this month and according to frontman Dan Smith, will focus on the human condition.

“Conceptually, the song that really started tying it together was ‘Warmth’, ” Smith told DIY magazine. “That was the track that articulated, for the first time, how overwhelming it can seem to be watching or reading the news and it seeming so mad and confusing. It’s about figuring out ways to react against that, and sometimes that is just running to the person that you love because they’re the perfect distraction in that situation.

“I mean, we’re not offering a solution; it’s just about that human reaction. That song is about the need to get out and completely escape, to fill your lungs with some fresh air, because it can be depressing to hear all . . . that hateful talk and lies.”

Brexit and subsequent eco-nomic fallout, terror attacks in countries such as Bangladesh, Turkey, France and Belgium, political instability and uncertainty faced by various governments, and devastating tornadoes in China, anyone?

What is worrying, albeit unsurprising, is that all of these events occurred after material for Wild World had been written. Christians who are all too aware of the struggle between good and evil in fact often cash in on this. Wars and rumours of wars? Natural disasters? The decline of human morality? We won’t stop talking about it because it obviously means the end is nigh. We warn people to repent, because time is running out.

But as Smith mentions, people don’t want to be constantly reminded that the world is ending—they can see that for themselves. 

Mad, confusing and depressing news are part and parcel of life, and humankind is desperate for a break, if not a permanent escape. We all yearn for hope. What we want isn’t a lesson about the end of the world. What we want is escape—not because we don’t care, but simply because we weren’t created to endure prolonged suffering and pain.

Might it be time we focused less on pinpointing what is wrong with the world and more on what we have to hope for—a place where God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. [Where] there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4)?