搬運自：微信公眾號【評論搬一堆】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：simon joanne

校對：Joonly EC

推送：Lynn Liu

Ariana Grande?is a woman of her word, dropping her new album just six months after her last one—and?Thank U, Next?turns out to be her best album yet.?Sweetener?was full of potential hits; the old-school model would have been to milk it for a couple of years, tour it to death, then start the cycle all over again. Instead, Grande went back in the studio while her energy was raging and banged out another album in two weeks. This is her?Amnesiac?to?Sweetener’s?Kid A. The theme is basically, “Break up with your music industry, I’m bored.”

Ariana是個說話算話的人——在上一張專輯發(fā)行六個月之后她就發(fā)行了至今為止她最好的一張專輯——《Thank U, Next（謝謝，下一位）》。《Sweetener（甜味劑）》中有很多可以大火的單曲，一般人完全可以坐著靠這一張專輯吃飯，休息個幾年直至把這張專輯的價值吸干凈，然后再重復(fù)這一過程，循環(huán)往復(fù)。然而Ariana卻在自己的精力依舊充足的情況下立馬回到錄音室，并在兩周內(nèi)完成了另一張專輯，好像完全忘記了《Sweetener》的存在。這基本上就像Ariana在說：“Break up with your music industry, I'm bored.(和音樂產(chǎn)業(yè)老規(guī)矩分手說再見吧，老娘已經(jīng)煩了！)”

Sweetener?was an ambitious artist crafting a self-consciously wide-scale pop statement.?Thank U, Next?is just a woman and a mood, taking that mood out for a drive until she pedal-to-the-metals it right off a cliff. What a glorious pop rush it is—the album version of one of those emergency break-up karaoke sessions with a few therapeutic hours of Mary J. Blige and Toni Braxton songs.

對于Ariana這一位頗具野心的藝人來說，《Sweetener》是一張被精心制作、具有廣泛視野和自我意識的流行聲明。《Thank U, Next》則只是一個女人和一種情緒，Ariana帶著這種情緒開車兜風(fēng)，踩緊油門，一路狂飆至懸崖。這是一場極其輝煌的流行熱潮——這張專輯版呈現(xiàn)的東西讓我感覺是一次因分手而緊急召開的KTV聚會、Mary J. Blige和Toni Braxton的治愈性歌曲被唱了幾個小時。

“Lately I’ve been on a roller coaster/Trying to get hold of my emotions,” Ariana confesses in “Needy.” By “l(fā)ately,” she seems to mean since she first tasted oxygen, and by “get hold of my emotions” she means turning her emotions into a spectacular, larger-than-life mess. She’s been through the ringer in the past two years—the Manchester bombing, Mac Miller’s death, a whirlwind engagement that turned into a messy public split.?Thank U, Next?is her response, reflecting her new determination to move fast and keep it spontaneous. “My dream has always been to be?.?.?.?obviously not a rapper, but, like, to put out music in the way that a rapper does,” she told?Billboard?in December. “It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to fucking talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do.’”

“Lately I’ve been on a roller coaster/Trying to get hold of my emotions（最近，我就像在過山車上一樣，嘗試著把控住自己的情緒）”Ariana在“Needy”中坦白道。這里的“l(fā)ately”在Ariana的表達(dá)中感覺像是從自己出生那一刻便開始了，而“get hold of my emotions（把控住自己的情緒）”則是在說，她嘗試著把自己的情緒轉(zhuǎn)化成一種比生活還要巨大而傳奇的混沌。在過去的兩年里，Ariana經(jīng)歷了各種痛苦——曼徹斯特爆炸、Mac Miller去世，一場“閃訂婚”的佳話變成了一場公關(guān)鬧劇。這張專輯則是Ariana對所有這一切的回應(yīng)，反映著她放下過去繼續(xù)前行和保持自然的生活目標(biāo)。“我一直夢想著……當(dāng)然不是去做一名饒舌歌手，而是像一個饒舌歌手那樣發(fā)行音樂，”她在12月的公告牌榜雜志訪談中說道，“就像這樣：‘哥們兒，我他媽的只想和我的粉絲對話，像這些男孩那樣創(chuàng)作、發(fā)行音樂’?！?/p>

When she surprised the world with “Thank U, Next” last fall, no one was expecting more than a quickie celebrity-shade novelty, yet it turned out to be a ballad with astonishing grace and resonance—and the whole album is up to that level. She’s going for the off-the-dome energy of a hip-hop mixtape: no guest stars, no duets. She works with her most trusted collaborators, like Max Martin, Tommy Brown, Victoria Monet, Tayla Parx and Pop Wansel. As she sings in “Ghostin’,” her surprisingly candid ballad about death, grief and recovery, “I’m a girl with a whole lot of baggage.”

去年秋天，當(dāng)Ariana以一曲《Thank U, Next》震驚了全世界，那時大多數(shù)人卻只想見證這個稚嫩的明星曇花一現(xiàn)，然而最后不僅是這一首讓人驚喜也能激發(fā)共鳴的首單，就連專輯中其他的曲目也一同達(dá)到了這一高水準(zhǔn)。她帶有一種嘻哈mixtape沖破穹頂式的精力——沒有邀請其他的歌手客串，完全一個人完成了整張專輯的演繹。她和她最信任的制作人一起合作——Max Martin, Tommy Brown, Victoria Monet, Tayla Parx 和 Pop Wansel。在“Ghostin”中，她對于死亡、傷痛和愈合表現(xiàn)得異常坦率，她唱道：“I’m a girl with a whole lot of baggage（我是個肩負(fù)了太多東西的女孩）”。

It’s strange to go back and listen to “Dangerous Woman” from just three years ago, back when Ariana sang about needing a dude to make her feel dangerous. Picture that. Well, those days are gone—this Ariana needs danger lessons like she needs an extra ponytail. Like she sings in the excellent “Makeup,” “Let me stay in my bag, ‘cause I like when you mad/It’s a mood, it’s a vibe, it’s a look, it’s a match.”

回到三年前，去重溫《Dangerous Woman（危險女人）》這張專輯，試著想象，當(dāng)時的Ariana還在歌曲中渴望著一個能讓自己變得“危險”的男人。但如今，這些都已經(jīng)過去了——剛?cè)雽m的Ariana已經(jīng)死了，她現(xiàn)在是Ariana·鈕祜祿·Grande，她需要一些危險的教程，就像她需要另外一根馬尾辮一樣。就像她在“Makeup”中唱道：“Let me stay in my bag, ‘cause I like when you mad/It’s a mood, it’s a vibe, it’s a look, it’s a match（讓我待在自己的包里，因為我喜歡你生氣，這是一種心情，是一種氛圍，是一種表情，是一種搭配）?！?/p>

“7 Rings” bites?The Sound of Music, but it’s much cooler than that time Gwen Stefani did “The Lonely Goatherd”—Ari fuses trap and Maria Von Trapp, from the Alps to the ATL. Yet it’s not really a song about expensive jewelry and bubbly. At heart, it’s a song about treating yourself and your friends like superstars even if nobody else notices. It’s her version of Cher’s “But mom, I?am?a rich man” speech. “NASA” is her excellent space-oddity ballad about her emotional solar system and the way her orbit changes over time; “Fake Smile” samples the Wendy Rene dusty soul groove “After Laughter,” a hip-hop touchstone via the Wu-Tang Clan.

“7 rings”采樣了《音樂之聲》原聲帶歌曲，但這首歌卻要比Gwen Stefani的“The Lonely Goatherd”酷得多——從Alps 到ATL ，Ariana完美融合了Trap和Maria Von Trapp。但這并不是真的是一首完全描寫紙醉金迷的歌曲，在心底深處，這首歌是在說即使沒有人注意到，你還是得把自己和朋友們當(dāng)成巨星一樣對待。這首歌就是Cher奶奶的名句“But mom, I am a rich man（但是媽媽，我自己就是那個有錢人）”的Ariana版本(Cher的媽媽問Cher什么時候退休找個有錢人結(jié)婚)。另一首“NASA”則是Ariana版的“Space Oddity”，只不過這里的太陽系代表的是她自己的感情世界，而所有行星的軌道則一直在變化?！癋ake Smile”采樣了Wendy Rene的“After Laughter”（一首很有年代感的靈魂樂），是一首通過Wu-Tang Clan組合創(chuàng)作的嘻哈試金石。

“Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” is a perfect song title in the tradition of Britney’s “Get Naked (I Got a Plan),” with Max Martin and a clever interpolation of the ‘NSync deep cut “It Makes Me Ill.” It’s the perfect way to end this album—after crying her tears and screaming her screams and feeling her feels, Ari flirts with the bartender on her way out, ready for more punishment. This is one of the year’s best pop albums so far, even in a 2019 that’s already turning out to be a great one for new music.?Thank U, Next?makes you suspect that the best Ariana is yet to come.

以Britney的“Get Naked (I Got a Plan)”的套路來看，“Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored”是個完美的歌曲標(biāo)題，在歌曲中Max Martin還巧妙地插入了一段NSYNC的熱單“It Makes Me Ill”旋律。這是為整張專輯畫上句點的最好方式——在哭過鬧過感受過之后，Ariana開始和尋找出路——和酒保調(diào)起情來，已經(jīng)為日后更多的懲罰做好準(zhǔn)備。這是目前這一年里發(fā)行過的最好的流行專輯，即使是在2019年，這也將成為新音樂中的佼佼者。《Thank U, Next》甚至?xí)屇銘岩?，Ariana是不是還會有更好的音樂作品？