搬運(yùn)自：微信公眾號(hào)【評(píng)論搬一堆】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語(yǔ)原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：Tyler Smith

審譯：Joonly EC

排版：Ryan-Chopin

For his catchy but charmless second solo album, the pop singer offers a loose-concept record that explores every angle of a breakup through the most pitiful of conversation starters: the weather.

在Niall Horan抓耳但缺乏魅力的第二張個(gè)人專輯中，他嘗試從最微小的對(duì)話開(kāi)頭，以天氣討論出發(fā)，探索分手的各個(gè)角度，交出了一張概念松散的唱片。

In 2010, a wee Niall Horan decided to test his vocal prowess by auditioning for the British singing competition?The X Factor. After performing a neutered rendition of Ne-Yo’s “So Sick,” the 16-year-old Irishman was met with skepticism from guest judge Katy Perry, who sagely warned, “Likeableness is not gonna sell records.” Nevertheless, she let him advance and Horan was placed in the group?One Direction?alongside four other baby-faced fellows. As 1D became the biggest pop group in the world, it was apparent that likability (alongside teenage sex appeal,?many?genuinely?good?bops, and a rapidly obsessive fanbase) actually sells?a lot?of records.

2010年，年輕的 Niall Horan決定參加英國(guó)歌唱比賽《X Factor》的試鏡，以證明自己的歌唱能力。這位16歲的愛(ài)爾蘭人在表演了一段Ne-Yo的“So Sick”后，遭到了評(píng)委Katy Perry的質(zhì)疑，她理智地警告說(shuō)，“只是可愛(ài)是賣不出唱片的”。然而，她還是讓他晉級(jí)了，Horan和其他四個(gè)娃娃臉的家伙一起被安排在了組合One Direction（1D）中。隨著1D成為當(dāng)時(shí)世界上最成功的流行樂(lè)隊(duì)，很明顯，可愛(ài)（以及十幾歲的性感，他們有許多確實(shí)很出彩的音樂(lè)和一個(gè)發(fā)展迅速的死忠粉絲群）也確實(shí)賣出了很多唱片。

After One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in 2015, Horan spun his role as the band’s guitar-playing Nice Guy into a pleasant-enough solo career. Three years after his folk-pop debut,?Flicker, Horan’s biggest challenge as an artist is to harness his ordinariness into being an exceptional everyman à la?Ed Sheeran?and Lewis Capaldi. So for his second record, the golf-loving, Eagles-obsessed wannabe boomer turned to a loose-concept album that explores every angle of a breakup through the most pitiful of conversation starters: the weather. Parting clouds, rising suns, cinematic rainstorms,?Heartbreak Weather?has everything, except soul.

2015年，在1D宣布無(wú)限期解散后，Horan從樂(lè)隊(duì)的吉他演奏好手跳脫，開(kāi)啟了自己愉快的單飛生涯。在Horan的民謠流行專輯《Flicker》首次亮相三年后，作為一名藝術(shù)家，他最大的挑戰(zhàn)是如何利用自己平凡的一面，成為一名杰出的普通人——像Ed Sheeran和Lewis Capaldi那樣。因此，在于他的第二張唱片中，一個(gè)熱愛(ài)高爾夫、并癡迷老鷹樂(lè)隊(duì)的老家伙借助于一張概念松散專輯，通過(guò)最具微笑的天氣對(duì)話開(kāi)始，探索分手的每個(gè)角度。離別的云彩，冉冉升起的太陽(yáng)，電影場(chǎng)景般的暴風(fēng)雨，心碎的天氣，除了靈魂，什么都有。

It’s quite a let down from the promise of?Heartbreak Weather’s lead single, “Nice to Meet Ya.” Borrowing some strained swagger from former bandmate?Liam Payne, Horan entices an elusive would-be lover over a dancey British alt-rock vibe. While the track employs some heavy-handed horniness—“I’m gonna take you somewhere warm, you know J’adore la mer,” Horan purrs because French makes everything sexier,?oui?—it’s an easy guilty pleasure that is as charming as it is uncool. Unfortunately, the rest of the record never recaptures this little spark.

與專輯的首發(fā)單曲“Nice to Meet Ya”給人帶來(lái)的期待度相比，整張專輯令人失望。學(xué)著前隊(duì)友Liam Payne不自在的搖擺，Horan在英式另類搖滾的律動(dòng)中邀請(qǐng)一個(gè)神秘的未來(lái)情人共舞。雖然這首單曲有著一些欲望過(guò)盛的感覺(jué)，Horan唱到：“I’m gonna take you somewhere warm, you know J’adore la mer（我要帶你去一個(gè)溫暖的地方，你知道我喜歡大海）”因?yàn)榉ㄕZ(yǔ)讓一切都更性感，是嗎？（這句歌詞中出現(xiàn)了法語(yǔ)）這是一種簡(jiǎn)單又有些罪惡感的快樂(lè)，不酷但卻吸引人。不幸的是，專輯里剩下的單曲再也沒(méi)有重現(xiàn)過(guò)這一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)火花。

On the title track, Horan posits that love has a magical, transformational power that can shift the cosmos and make lonely boys feel complete. He follows this disclosure with “Black and White,” a soaring declaration of eternal devotion. “I promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life,” Horan belts, in between weepy visions of their wedding day and homely golden years. It’s difficult to feel moved by the stakes of these grandiose statements because their meanings are so cliché, and not in the way that feels refreshingly familiar.

在專輯同名曲中，Horan假設(shè)愛(ài)情有一種神奇的轉(zhuǎn)化力量，可以改變宇宙，讓孤獨(dú)的男孩感到完整。“Black and White”中仍堅(jiān)持這一假設(shè)，這是一個(gè)關(guān)于不朽之愛(ài)的高亢宣言。“I promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life.（我保證，我會(huì)愛(ài)你一輩子），”Horan在婚禮之日和金婚后的家常歲月場(chǎng)景之間飛奔。這些宏大的場(chǎng)景所展現(xiàn)的大愛(ài)很難打動(dòng)人，因?yàn)樗鼈兊暮x太老套了，不是讓人耳目一新的方式。

After these blasts of sunshine, storm clouds gather. Across the rest of?Heartbreak Weather, Horan is stuck in two mindsets: bereft or coltish, either haunted by the memory of a lover, or desperately trying to scrub her away. There’s no explanation for why the relationship worthy of celestial exaltation dissipates other than that the music starts to move from generic anthems into a confusing mix of bleeding-heart ballads and Fleetwood Mac-indebted pop-rock. As on?Flicker, Horan is a co-writer on every song and he is joined by Teddy Geiger,?Tobias Jesso Jr.,?Greg Kurstin, Scott Harris, and 1D regular Julian Bunetta. Horan’s songwriting seemingly works only in unwavering extremes. When he’s blue, like on the painfully maudlin “Dear Patience” or the piano-driven breakup ballad “Put a Little Love on Me,” it’s as if the sky is falling. When he’s hurt by a lover, as on “Bend the Rules” he is the picture of gentlemanly restraint. “I pour myself a glass, it won’t be the last/Just our medicine for now,” he forlornly rumbles. (Confusingly, Horan?has referred to?this song as his “Streets of Philadelphia” moment, a song written in response to the AIDS epidemic.) When he’s frisky, as in say, “Small Talk,” he invokes feral wolves and roaring flames. Over and over again, he goes through the motions without ever really looking inward.

在這充沛的陽(yáng)光下，竟依舊烏云密布。在其他歌曲里，Horan陷入了兩種心態(tài)：迷失或冷漠，要么被關(guān)于愛(ài)人的記憶所困擾，要么拼命想把她從回憶中趕走。除了音樂(lè)開(kāi)始從普通的贊歌轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)榱钊嗣恢^腦的心碎情歌和Fleetwood Mac式流行搖滾的結(jié)合，沒(méi)有任何理由可以解釋為什么神仙眷侶般的關(guān)系也會(huì)破裂。和《Flicker》一樣，Horan參與了每首歌的創(chuàng)作，Teddy Geiger, Tobias Jesso Jr., Greg Kurstin, Scott Harris以及 1D 常客 Julian Bunetta也加入了創(chuàng)作的行列。Horan的歌曲創(chuàng)作似乎一直非常極端。當(dāng)他憂傷時(shí)，比如在令人悲傷的“Dear Patience”或鋼琴分手民謠“Put a Little Love on Me”中，仿佛天空都塌下來(lái)了。當(dāng)他受到情人的傷害時(shí)，比如在“Bend the Rules”中那樣，他紳士般地克制自己的情緒。“I pour myself a glass, it won’t be the last/Just our medicine for now.（我給自己倒了一杯，這不會(huì)是最后一杯/只是我倆現(xiàn)在的解藥），”他凄涼地低吟著。（令人困惑的是，Horan把這首歌稱為屬于他的“費(fèi)城的街道”，這本是一首為應(yīng)對(duì)艾滋病流行而寫的歌。）當(dāng)他精神抖擻時(shí)，就像在“Small Talk”里，他會(huì)召喚野狼和熊熊烈火。他一次又一次地點(diǎn)題，但從來(lái)沒(méi)有真正地往深處挖掘。

In an interview with?apple Music, Horan said that despite his intention to cover a variety of perspectives, the songs will “probably still sound selfish.” It’s not exactly that?Heartbreak Weather?is selfish—Horan sounds too adrift for true narcissism—but it’s superficial. The women in his songs are painfully one-dimensional. Rather than defining them at all, Horan and his songwriters reduce them into faceless placeholders tasked with helping the singer move on. On the boogie-down track “New Angel,” a forsaken Horan craves a distraction from his lovesick psyche. “I need a new angel/A touch of someone else to save me from myself,” he croons, “....I’m hoping you get her out of my mind.” Horan repeatedly writes himself into similar emotional pickles, finding solace in the arms of a stranger while fixated with someone else. It’s a valid post-breakup experience, but it simultaneously limits the already narrow role women have on the record.

Horan在接受蘋果音樂(lè)的采訪時(shí)說(shuō)，盡管他打算涵蓋各種角度，但這些歌曲“可能聽(tīng)起來(lái)仍然很私人化”。這并不完全是因?yàn)椤禜eartbreak Weather》太私人化，Horan聽(tīng)起來(lái)并不自戀，但《Heartbreak Weather》是膚淺的。他歌里的女人的痛苦是一維的。Horan和他的詞曲作者沒(méi)有對(duì)它們下定義，而是把它們簡(jiǎn)化成一個(gè)不知名的占位符，任務(wù)是幫助歌手繼續(xù)前進(jìn)。在低音布魯斯單曲“New Angel”中，被拋棄的Horan渴望從他那患相思病的心靈中解脫出來(lái)?！癐 need a new angel/A touch of someone else to save me from myself.（我需要一個(gè)新的天使/一個(gè)其他人的觸摸來(lái)拯救我自己）”他低聲說(shuō)道，“....I’m hoping you get her out of my mind.（.……我希望你能讓她從我的腦海中消失。）”Horan不斷地把自己寫進(jìn)類似的情感糾葛中，在一個(gè)陌生人的懷里尋找慰藉，同時(shí)眼神又鎖定其他人。這是一次有效的分手后的經(jīng)歷，但同時(shí)也限制了女性在專輯中本已狹窄的角色。

After all the sentimental rigamarole, it’s tough to come away from?Heartbreak Weather?feeling any closer to Horan. He spends too much of the record bouncing between sounds and songwriting concepts to feel distinct. But on the record’s closer, the acoustic ballad “Still,” Horan sounds like he genuinely wants, or even?needs?an emotional reckoning. It’s the realest, rawest moment on the record and a small bit of proof that Horan has the potential to make it on his own.

聽(tīng)完《Heartbreak Weather》，在經(jīng)歷了所有多愁善感的碎碎念之后，仍然讓人感到與Horan有距離感。他花了太多的時(shí)間在聲音和獨(dú)特的歌曲創(chuàng)作概念之間來(lái)回跳躍。但最近，在不插電版的“Still”中，Horan聽(tīng)起來(lái)是真心想要，甚至急需一個(gè)情感上的仔細(xì)考量。這是專輯有史以來(lái)最真實(shí)、最原始的時(shí)刻，也是Horan能獨(dú)挑大梁的一個(gè)小小證明。