The 1975, an English rock band, titled their 2016 sophomore album: “I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful, yet so unaware of it.” The title is so long that one might find it laughable. The title’s length falls in line with a theme of searching. Whether the search is for love or faith or front man Matthew Healy’s personal identity, being a fan of The 1975, and really any artist or group of artists, is investing in a journey.

“I like it when you sleep” could have been enough within itself, but to keep going with not one but two more clauses gives one time to think; it forces the listeners to perhaps pay more attention than they otherwise would and prepare to engage with an all-round ambitious album whose one hour and 13 minutes duration mimics its title length.

2016 has been an objectively great year in music, and much of that music, including The 1975’s album, revealed themes of black gospel sound. The song “If I Believe You” is interesting in its paradox. While it employs gospel rhythm and style, the lyrics depict Healy’s struggle with atheism and religion itself. He begins with the confession that he has “a God-shaped hole that’s infected,” and he fears being alone. He continues in a hushed and dejected tone about his restlessness before arriving at a chorus wherein he directly speaks to Jesus Crist asking that if he believes might Christ reveal himself. The song ends with Healy repeatedly questioning, “If I’m lost then how can I find myself?” ultimately acknowledging that what he wants from a relationship with the god he cannot believe in is an understanding of his own identity. He’s undoubtedly searching.

In or outside of established religion, music has a sort of peculiar ability to lend faith and personhood to those in need.

Chance the Rapper had the biggest year of his relatively young career with “Coloring Book,” which had two tracks titled “Blessings,” one titled “Angels” and another that begins with over one-minute of the well-known spiritual, “How Great.” Kanye West returned to music after three years of pursuing other creative endeavors in order to release an album steeped in Christian sound, complete with a testimonial interlude, which displays a woman in tears because of how good God has been to her. And as West now works to recover from issues of mental health, I can’t help but listen to that album and hear the work of a hurting individual reminiscent of Healy’s questioning in “If I Believe You.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j8frgmdvgc

Because music is not created in a vacuum but is instead produced in and about the surrounding world, examining the ways that gospel is woven into popular music should reveal something about the world’s current state. Chance the Rapper’s vision of religion in music is a decidedly cheerful one, and it allows him to sing about having made it through life’s storms. The 1975’s experience with religion directs listeners to a more difficult understanding of how it might play out in one’s personal life. But, ultimately, both albums, along with West’s “The Life of Pablo,” suggest a dearth of hope—if not always in the artist themselves, then in society.

Despite Chance’s overall happy message, in the end, he gives the story of his trials to his listeners out of a feeling of obligation, knowing that they might one day need it. West’s album ends with a state of loss, as the hook to “Saint Pablo,” the final song, suggests that God now ignores him when he needs guidance—he looks to the sky and gets no response. The 1975’s “I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful, yet so unaware of it” leaves listeners with decidedly secular thoughts as the album drifts into relationships between people rather than one between an individual and their god. A secular frame holds in the final song, “She Lays Down,” written solely by Healy, which tells the story of a woman who might otherwise be his salvation if she didn’t have a drug addiction and suicidal thoughts. Instead of being saved, Healy finally sings “she lays down” and “that was it.”

It might be superfluous to state that many of 2016’s great albums reveal a search for faith that is amplified by gospel undertones, but in the way that music is often subversive, it is interesting that artists are offering these messages at this point in time. Perhaps the idea is to make the search for faith a more deliberate act, rather than to believe life will come and go as it should. It might be that artists now ask their listeners to choose the pursuit of faith in the same way that the choose what they do and do not listen to.

The 1975 came to the St. Louis Peabody Opera House on Nov. 29. Perhaps they were able to lend someone a chance at finding the faith they sing about, even if they have not found it themselves.