搬運自：微信公眾號【評論搬一堆】（在原文基礎上添加了英語原文與排版調整）

With his 2017 album?Flower Boy,?Tyler,?the Creator?set out to answer a simple, burning question:?Who dat boy? The result was nothing short of a revelation. Tyler bloomed almost literally, burrowing into his past and emerging from the closet amidst naturalistic motifs and a sun-drenched landscape of woozy synths, piano splashes, and Mancini-esque strings. In the process, he radically re-contextualized his history as a Ritalin-addled provocateur who made songs with titles like?“AssMilk,”?tweeted under the nom de guerre?@fucktyler, and hurled gay slurs with a disturbing regularity. Ultimately,?Flower Boy?was a triumph because Tyler succeeded in reinventing his sound and ethos without sacrificing his subversive edge.

承接他在2017年發(fā)行的上一張專輯《Flower Boy（花少年）》,Tyler, the Creator開始嘗試回答一個簡單卻棘手的問題——我是誰？而結果完全是一個啟示。Tyler幾乎是完全綻放開來了——在自然主義主題和由令人眼花繚亂的合成器、潑灑般的鋼琴聲和曼西尼式弦樂組成的浸透著陽光的景致下，挖掘自己的過去，慢慢從柜中走了出來。在這一過程中，他從根本上重新審視了自己：他曾是一個用類似“AssMilk”之類字眼作為自己歌曲的標題、用“fucktyler”作為自己推特網(wǎng)名并以令人驚訝的頻率發(fā)出著恐同言論、離經(jīng)叛道者的人?？偟膩碚f，《Flower Boy》是一次成功的嘗試，因為Tyler在沒有犧牲自己具有顛覆性的邊緣嘗試的情況下成功地重塑了自己的音樂風格和精神氣質。

Like?Flower Boy, Tyler’s new album?IGOR?is an album for the summer months. It’s a rich and messy mélange of R&B, funk and rap that carries a luminous sheen and a bittersweet undercurrent; lyrically, Tyler traces the emotional journey of being the odd man out in a love triangle. “Your other one evaporate, we celebrate/You under oath, now pick a side,” he raps on “New Magic Wand.” On?IGOR, Tyler seldom acts as the character he plays in the?“What’s Good”?music video, in which he vigorously shadowboxes while wearing a blonde bowl cut wig and a two-tone pink suit. Much more often he’s wounded and vulnerable, weighed down by real emotional labor.

像《Flower Boy》一樣，Tyler的新專輯《IGOR》是一張“夏日限定”專輯。這張專輯承載了一種閃耀著的光澤和苦樂參半的暗流，并混雜了節(jié)奏布魯斯、放克和饒舌等風格，豐富而又混亂；在歌詞層面上，Tyler探尋了作為一個在一段三角戀中古怪存在的心路歷程。“Your other one evaporate, we celebrate/You under oath, now pick a side（你的另一個已經(jīng)蒸發(fā)了，我們便開始慶祝/你已經(jīng)宣誓過，現(xiàn)在就得選邊站）,”他在“New Magic Wand”中唱道。在《IGOR》中，Tyler保持自己在“What’s Good”MV中的形象并不多見——戴著碗形的金色假發(fā)、穿著雙色粉紅西裝夸張地做著太極拳動作。更多時候，他是受到傷害、脆弱并被真實情感勞動的重力所壓垮的。

Tyler’s story about navigating his crumbling relationship feels rendered in earnest, but it’s hardly the centerpiece of?IGOR. Rather, it exists primarily to serve the album’s zany vocal experiments. Tyler eschews his raspy baritone and operates on a spectrum between an imitation of Pharrell’s squeaky falsetto and pitched-up, droopy-eared Eeyore raps. Instead of constructing songs around catchy hooks and brisk 16-bar verses, he revels in pregnant pauses, stops frequently to repeat lines several times, and generally lets himself falter and stumble blindly across the middle ground of the album’s lush production, which is characterized by thick, buzzsaw bass lines, glittering arpeggiated synths, and juicy neo-soul harmonies. The first moment on?Igor?that could be described as a “verse” doesn’t arrive until halfway through the second track “Earfquake,” when Playboi Carti seizes the mic and lets his marvelous baby voice fly. (By contrast, Kanye West’s sorry guest turn on “Puppets” sounds like he recorded it by moaning indiscriminately into a tin can.)

Tyler的故事圍繞著自己如何處理破碎的人際關系而展開，并散發(fā)這一種真實感，不過這應該并不是《IGOR》最主要的核心。相反，它的存在應該更主要是為專輯中滑稽的人聲實驗服務。Tyler避開了他刺耳的男中音，在模仿Pharrell高音假聲和音調高昂、耷拉著耳朵的屹耳饒舌樂之間進行創(chuàng)作。他癡迷于充滿意味的停頓之中，時常在某處停下以重復好幾遍同樣的詞，同時讓自己慢慢地盲目蹣跚著行進到這張專輯（以如鋸齒般厚實的低音線、閃亮的合成器琶音和妙趣橫生的新靈魂樂和聲為特征的）華麗制作的中間平地上，而不是簡單地通過抓耳的副歌旋律和16節(jié)輕快的主歌來構造歌曲。直到專輯第二首歌曲“Earfquake”的一半已經(jīng)過去，Playboi Carti得到了麥克風并開始讓自己獨具特色的娃娃音展現(xiàn)出來，整張《IGOR》中才第一次出現(xiàn)能被叫做是“主歌”的部分。（相比之下，Kanye West在“PUPPETS”中的助陣就要顯得遺憾得多——他像是在對一只易拉罐不加區(qū)別地呻吟。）

By couching his vocals deep in the mix, Tyler is basically saying that he sees himself as producer, singer, and rapper, in that order. “Man having random folks walk up to me telling me about the bridge on I THINK gives me so much joy,” Tyler tweeted upon the album’s release. “if u know me i can be annoying with talks about bridges and progressions so im hyped its people who care. the version you hear is the 9th one, kept going back until it was PERFECT.” No matter how obnoxious and pedantic this bridge-talk is, Tyler’s pride in his meticulous production is well-earned. Across?IGOR, he achieves a happy balance by tempering his wonky song structures bordering on the surreal and dogged pursuit of synthgasms with a clear narrative arc and careful calculated swerves in tone and texture.

通過在混音中更多地展現(xiàn)自己地聲線，Tyler基本上實在表達，他將自己視為不僅是一名制作人、饒舌者，更是一名歌手?！癕an having random folks walk up to me telling me about the bridge on I THINK gives me so much joy（忽然有個人走過來告訴我間奏應該怎么寫，我覺得這讓我太高興了）,”Tyler在專輯發(fā)行之際發(fā)推說道，“如果你們足夠了解我你們就會知道在處理銜接和專輯的改進上可能會很讓人煩，所以我也算是被人們關心著炒作了，現(xiàn)在你聽到的版本已經(jīng)是第九版了，我們不斷不斷地從頭再來就是為了達到完美?！辈还苓@種橋頭堡式的談話多么迂腐和令人討厭，Tyler對他細致入微的作品感到自豪是當之無愧的。在《IGOR》中，Tyler通過調整自己搖擺不定的歌曲結構，達到了一種愉快的平衡，這種結構近乎超現(xiàn)實主義，對合奏的執(zhí)著追求，帶有清晰的敘事弧線，以及精心設計的色調和紋理轉向。

Igor?is a heartfelt album that finds Tyler lowering his guard and revealing himself to be a shape-shifting artist who is still growing, and who has fully shed his skin as a vulgar internet cowboy. On the final song, he gingerly poses the question to his former lover, “Are we still friends? Can we be friends?” His singing is amateur, but the production, anchored by a swaying Al Green sample, is massive. It’s not hard to see Tyler closing out his set at any of the festivals he’s headlining this year (Governors Ball, Firefly Festival, and his own Camp Flog Gnaw) by gently rocking back and forth, leading 50 thousand people in that sweet refrain.

《IGOR》是一張真誠的專輯，它讓Tyler放低了自己的防備并展示自己作為一個正在成長的藝術家和已經(jīng)褪去各種膚淺表面的粗俗互聯(lián)網(wǎng)牛仔男孩的形狀可變性。在最后一首歌里，他小心翼翼地對自己曾經(jīng)的戀人提出了這樣一個疑問，“Are we still friends? Can we be friends?（我們還是朋友嗎？我們還能成為朋友嗎？）”他的演唱技術可能還不夠專業(yè)，但這扎根于Al Green搖擺不定的采樣制作是非常優(yōu)秀的。我們不難看到，Tyler在他今年的任何一個領銜的音樂節(jié)(Governors Ball, Firefly Festival,?還有他自己的Camp Flog Gnaw)上輕輕地前后搖擺，帶領五萬人唱著那甜美的副歌并以此為這些演出畫上完美的句點。