【搬運(yùn)】【譯】叉婊Pitchfork評(píng)Adele 2015年專輯《25》
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
校對(duì)：Emma.Z
推送：Lynn Liu
Adele is still young by any sensible metric, but much of?25, her third album, concerns itself with the passage of time: the inevitable accumulation of both years and vantages. Almost every song addresses heartache in one form or another and her instincts as a singer remain unmatched.
無(wú)論你以任何標(biāo)準(zhǔn)去衡量，阿黛爾都還很年輕，但在她的第三張專輯《25》中，大部分歌曲故事都已成滄海桑田:無(wú)法抗拒的時(shí)光飛逝與名氣的提升而帶來(lái)的一切。幾乎每首歌都以這樣或那樣的形式來(lái)表達(dá)心痛。阿黛爾作為一名歌手的天賦是無(wú)與倫比的。
Adele is only 27 years old, still young by any sensible metric, but much of?25, her third album, concerns itself with the passage of time: the inevitable accumulation of both years and vantages. It’s as if she knows intimately the nauseating experience of waking up one morning, surveying a half-lived life, and thinking, "Oops." She?never adopts a schoolmarm’s consternation (and she is entitled to some authority, having sold a boggling 30 million copies of her last record, 2011’s?21), but she is nevertheless cautionary, encouraging her listeners to do better, act faster, stop being such a bunch of clowns. Get up and get over, friend, she seems to be saying—you are a grown person now.
阿黛爾年僅27歲，無(wú)論以任何標(biāo)準(zhǔn)去衡量都還很年輕，但在她的第三張專輯《25》中，大部分歌曲故事都已成滄海桑田:無(wú)法抗拒的時(shí)光飛逝與名氣的提升而帶來(lái)的一切。仿佛她清楚地知道她會(huì)經(jīng)歷一些令人瞬間反胃的事：在某天早上醒來(lái)后回想自己的前半生，然后大吃一驚。她從不懼怕古板人群的錯(cuò)愕(她是有底氣的，因?yàn)樗纳弦粡垖］嫛?1》(2011)的銷量達(dá)到了驚人的3000萬(wàn)張)，但她仍然謹(jǐn)慎地走好每一步，她的歌曲鼓勵(lì)聽(tīng)眾做得更好、行動(dòng)更快，不要再像個(gè)小丑一樣。她似乎在說(shuō)：朋友，振作起來(lái)，你已經(jīng)長(zhǎng)大成人了。
Or: "We both know we ain’t kids no more," which is how she puts it on "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)", a song co-written by Max Martin, the 44-year-old Swedish super-producer who has now penned almost as many number one singles as Lennon and McCartney. Stack ‘em up, and all of Martin’s songs follow a particular formula: they’re prickly, quick-moving affairs that braid the precision of Swedish pop like?ABBA?with the more groove-oriented rhythms of American R&B. To that end, Martin is as exacting of a songwriter as I’ve ever heard: like he did with the tracks he made for Taylor Swift ("Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Style") and Katy Perry ("I Kissed a Girl", "Teenage Dream", "Roar"), he relies on some enigmatic internal cadence, clipping syllables like a hiccuping?poet, taking a tiny scalpel to his melodies. He keeps his lines pointy and balanced. "Send-my-love/ To-your-new/ Luh-uh-ver."?The results are like encountering a person with perfectly symmetrical features—both instantly appealing and deeply, existentially unsettling. The song opens with carefully plucked acoustic guitar, and when the chorus comes in it’s as if someone yanked the curtains up on a dark room.
或者：“We both know we ain’t kids no more（我們都知道我們不再是孩子了）”，這就是她在“Send My Love（To Your New Lover）”中的表述，這首歌是她與瑞典超級(jí)制作人馬克斯·馬丁（Max Martin）共同創(chuàng)作的，馬丁現(xiàn)在創(chuàng)作的冠軍單曲幾乎可以和Lennon和McCartney比肩。馬丁的所有歌曲都遵循一個(gè)特定的公式：它們是尖銳的、快節(jié)奏的東西，將諸如ABBA的瑞典流行樂(lè)的精準(zhǔn)與更注重節(jié)奏感的美國(guó)R&B編織在一起。馬丁是我聽(tīng)過(guò)的最嚴(yán)格的作曲家：就像他為泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）所作的"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Style"與為和凱蒂·佩里（Katy Perry）所作的“I Kissed a Girl”、“Teenage Dream”、“Roar”一樣，他依靠一些神秘的內(nèi)部節(jié)奏，像打嗝的詩(shī)人一樣剪裁音節(jié)，用一把小手術(shù)刀剪切旋律。他保持歌詞的抑揚(yáng)頓挫。"Send-my-love/ To-your-new/ Luh-uh-ver."?這樣做的效果就像讓聽(tīng)眾遇見(jiàn)一個(gè)完全對(duì)稱的人一樣，既吸引人又深沉，又有著令人不安的感覺(jué)。這首歌以精心彈撥的原聲吉他開(kāi)場(chǎng)，當(dāng)合聲切入時(shí)，就好像有人在一方黑暗的小屋里猛得拉開(kāi)了窗簾。
Lyrically, Adele leans on a familiar kind of outrage, reckoning with a lover who broke every promise he ever made to her. There's unrequited love, but then there’s love that changes shape; if you’re unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of that transaction—made unwilling witness to the mysterious, alchemical shift in which devotion suddenly thins, sours—true understanding is impossible, a fool’s errand. This is the love that Adele sings of, the kind where there’s nothing left to do but resign: "I’m giving you up, I’m forgiving it all." Nurturing grudges is a young woman’s game.
在情感方面，阿黛爾依靠的是一種熟悉的憤怒感：認(rèn)識(shí)到一個(gè)愛(ài)人打破了他對(duì)她的每一個(gè)承諾。這世上有不計(jì)回報(bào)的愛(ài)，但也有會(huì)變質(zhì)的愛(ài)；如果你不走運(yùn)地處在愛(ài)的接受端，即使你不愿意，你也不得不親眼見(jiàn)證這一神秘又莫名其妙的轉(zhuǎn)變：在這種轉(zhuǎn)變中，你的愛(ài)人對(duì)你的奉獻(xiàn)突然變少，甚至引起的你厭煩。你無(wú)法理解其中真正的原因，去嘗試?yán)斫獾娜艘彩钟薮?。這就是阿黛爾所唱的愛(ài)情，那種只能默默離場(chǎng)的愛(ài)情：“I’m giving you up, I’m forgiving it all.（我放棄你，我原諒一切。） ”懷恨在心是年輕女人的游戲。
Almost every song on?25?addresses heartache in one form or another. "Send My Love" is anomalous in its confidence; more often, Adele sounds excruciatingly aware of her own blunders and bereavements, and the ways in which time has made them indelible.?Sometimes, Adele herself is the agent of grief, like on "Hello", in which she attempts to?reach an ex-lover on her flip-phone. Surely, on some level, Adele knows the message she’s so hungry to deliver—"I’m sorry/ For breaking your heart"—is not the kind of sentiment that’s going to yield her much more than a slowly raised middle finger (the indignation of the recently forsaken is vast, merciless). She is arguably more desperate to reach an earlier iteration of herself, to correct something, quiet some panic.
《25》中的幾乎每首歌都以某種形式表達(dá)心痛?！?#34;Send My Love" 這首歌的自信心是反常的；通常，阿黛爾聽(tīng)起來(lái)極度清楚自己的錯(cuò)誤和喪愛(ài)之痛，以及時(shí)間如何讓它們變得不可磨滅。有時(shí)，阿黛爾自己就是悲傷的代理人，就像在"Hello中，她試圖用她的翻蓋電話聯(lián)系陳年舊愛(ài)。當(dāng)然，在某種程度上，阿黛爾知道她渴望傳達(dá)的信息——"I’m sorry/ For breaking your heart"（對(duì)不起/傷了你的心）——和一個(gè)慢慢抬起的中指（剛被拋棄的人的憤怒是巨大的，瘋狂的）對(duì)她的打擊是一樣的?？梢哉f(shuō)，她更迫切地想回到最初的自己，糾正一些錯(cuò)誤，平息一些恐慌。
Other times she is a victim of loss. In the piano ballad "When We Were Young", which was co-written with?Tobias Jesso Jr., she sings: "Let me photograph you in this light/ In case it is the last time/ That we might be exactly like we were/ Before we realized." The instrumentation swells, quiets. The precise nature of that realization is not named, but of course it doesn’t need to be, or not explicitly (as Joan Didion wrote, in 1967, "It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends."). The song itself is a kind of homage to the booming, soft-focus singer-songwriters who dominated AM radio in the 1970s (Barbra Streisand, Shirley Bassey), and Adele’s vocal performance is astonishing, full of vigor and beauty.
其他時(shí)候她是失去的受害者。在與Tobias Jesso Jr.共同創(chuàng)作的鋼琴民謠 "When We Were Young"中，她唱道："Let me photograph you in this light/ In case it is the last time/ That we might be exactly like we were/ Before we realized." 讓我在這光影下給你拍照/以防這是最后一次/我們?nèi)晕幢粴q月改變/在我們尚意識(shí)得到之時(shí)?！睒?lè)起，樂(lè)終。至于意識(shí)到什么，并沒(méi)有被明確指出，但當(dāng)然，它不需要被指出，或者說(shuō)，不需要被明說(shuō)（正如Joan Didion在1967年所寫(xiě)的那樣，“看清事情的開(kāi)端很容易，而看清事情的結(jié)局很難?！保?。這首歌本身就是對(duì)20世紀(jì)70年代在AM電臺(tái)（Barbra Streisand，Shirley Bassey）主流的紅極一時(shí)、風(fēng)格柔和的唱作歌手的一種致敬，阿黛爾的聲樂(lè)表演令人驚嘆，充滿活力和美感。
Still: the cumulative effect is sometimes as treacly as the heavily frosted sheet cake being slid onto the buffet table in the carpeted banquet hall where this song will be blasting, on a loop, for all of eternity. Even your most adorable aunt—the one who loves a Yankee Candle—will eventually drain her flute of sparkling wine, lean forward, and be like, "Dog, this shit is corny."
盡管如此，老一套的累積效應(yīng)有時(shí)還是像厚厚的糖霜蛋糕滑到鋪著地毯的宴會(huì)廳里的自助餐桌上一樣，在某處，歌曲的情緒迸發(fā)，回環(huán)反復(fù)，無(wú)時(shí)不刻都是這樣。即使是你最可愛(ài)的阿姨，一位揚(yáng)基蠟燭的忠實(shí)粉絲，也會(huì)啜干香檳杯的汽酒，俯身向前，然后說(shuō)：“天吶，這太土了?！?/strong>
Taken as a whole document, it is truly staggering how many of these songs—all of them, as far as I can tell—address the foibles of romantic love. It’s not so much that Adele’s lyrics are platitudinous (although they often are), it’s that the album’s prevailing sentiment eventually becomes wearying. In his book?The Song Machine, John Seabrook interviews Bonnie McKee, the 31-year-old songwriter behind some of Katy Perry’s bigger hits and a frequent collaborator of Martin’s; McKee offers a pat, sorry-dude response to the question of lyrical uniformity in contemporary pop. "Most people still just want to hear about love and partying," is what she tells Seabrook. A shrug—a "Hey, it’s not us, it’s you! You dummies are the ones who want that!"—is implied.
作為一個(gè)完整的記錄，《25》真正令人震驚的是它里面如此多的歌曲都表現(xiàn)了浪漫愛(ài)情的弱點(diǎn)。與其說(shuō)阿黛爾的歌詞平淡無(wú)奇（盡管它們經(jīng)常如此），倒不如說(shuō)這張專輯的主流情緒最終變得令人厭倦。John Seabrook在他的《The Song Machine（歌曲機(jī)器）》一書(shū)中采訪了31歲的Bonnie McKee，她是凱蒂·佩里（Katy Perry）一些大熱門(mén)歌曲的幕后操刀者，也是馬丁（Martin）的合作?？?；McKee對(duì)當(dāng)代流行音樂(lè)中抒情一致性的問(wèn)題給出了一個(gè)輕描淡寫(xiě)且差強(qiáng)人意的回答?！彼嬖V西Seabrook：“大多數(shù)人還是想聽(tīng)關(guān)于愛(ài)情和派對(duì)的事。她的肩就好像在說(shuō)“嘿，不是我們，是你！你們這些笨蛋才是想要這些陳詞濫調(diào)的人！”
Perhaps that?is?what people want: Adele is presently on track to break N*Sync's record, held since 2000, of 2.24 million copies sold in the first week of release (on Friday, more than 900,000 people downloaded?25?from the iTunes store alone). And perhaps these songs are trifles, foregone conclusions that, instead of facilitating or inviting a deepening, allow for just one outcome: a peaceable head-bob, a wistful smile. They are one-way, dead-end roads, emotional shortcuts to wells of loss and contrition. But regardless of how one might feel about the spiritual utility of pop music, Adele’s instincts as a singer remain unmatched; she is, inarguably, the greatest vocalist of her generation, an artist who instinctively understands timbre and pitch, when to let some air in. It does not seem unfair to ask that dynamism of her songs, too.
或許這確實(shí)正是人們想要的：Adele打破了N*Sync自2000年以來(lái)的記錄，在發(fā)行的第一周就售出了224萬(wàn)份（第一個(gè)周五，僅iTunes商店就下載了90多萬(wàn)份）。也許這些歌并不偉大、都是能被預(yù)見(jiàn)的定論，而不是深化挖掘的過(guò)程，它們只允許一個(gè)結(jié)果：一個(gè)點(diǎn)頭，一個(gè)沉思的微笑。它們是單向的死胡同，通往失落和悔恨之井的情感小道。但不管人們對(duì)流行音樂(lè)的精神效用有何感想，阿黛爾作為一名歌手的本能仍然是無(wú)與倫比的；毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，她是她這一代最偉大的歌手之一，是一位本能地理解音色和音高、何時(shí)要留白的藝術(shù)家。當(dāng)然，希望她交出充滿活力的歌曲似乎也沒(méi)什么不對(duì)。
