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：Whitney.L，Ryan-Chopin

校對：Lynn Liu

排版：Peter D

Today on Pitchfork, we are taking a critical look at the rise of Taylor Swift—from country underdog to pop superstar—with new reviews of her first five records.

今天在Pitchfork，我們將帶著批判的目光對Taylor Swift前五張專輯進行一番新的評述，來看看她是如何從鄉(xiāng)村小天后成長為流行巨星的。

When?Taylor Swift?moved to Nashville as a teenager with hopes of becoming a country star, she faced an uphill battle. “Basically, all the record companies went, ‘Ah, how cute. She’s just a little kid,’” Swift?said in?2008. “They also said, ‘Give up your dreams. Go home and come back when you're 18.’” “I would feel like they were deleting me from their Blackberrys as I was telling them,” Scott Borchetta, president of her label Big Machine,?told?The New York Times?of the Nashville industry’s reaction to signing Swift. She?never wanted?her age to be “the headline,” or a number that screamed to writers and producers that she was just a starry-eyed hobbyist making music in her bedroom.

Taylor Swift十幾歲搬到納什維爾的時候，她就夢想著成為一名鄉(xiāng)村歌手，然而，這意味著，她即將面臨一場艱苦的戰(zhàn)役。“基本上，所有的唱片公司都說，‘啊，真可愛。她只是個孩子，”Swift在2008年說道，“他們還說，‘放棄你的夢想吧。趕緊回家，等你18歲的時候再來’?！薄拔腋杏X他們會像我對他們說的那樣，把我從黑莓手機上刪除”，Scott Borchetta是Taylor的唱片公司Big Machine的總裁，他在接受《The New York Times》(紐約時報)采訪時，談到了納什維爾總部對簽下Swift的反應(yīng)。泰勒表示，她從不希望自己的年齡成為“頭條新聞”，也不希望因為她的年齡，使得那些作曲家和制作人輕蔑地認(rèn)為她只是一個，宅在臥室，不切實際的幻想家。

On her?self-titled debut, Swift established herself as a precocious storyteller who could write love songs vague and ageless enough that anyone might find herself in them, perhaps to prove to Nashville that a teen could do it. Her second album,?Fearless,?is a rebuke to that approach, with Swift bringing listeners straight to the dreaded football-game bleachers and mean-girl maze of high school. She took her teen self seriously and demanded others do the same, navigating the cloying innocence of a girl who simultaneously experiences relationships like a dog-eared Nicholas Sparks novel and also has the wisdom to know that not all kisses end in a rainstorm.

在她以自己的名字命名的首張專輯中，Swift把自己塑造成一個早熟的故事講述者，她寫出了一些含糊不清的、永恒的情歌，任何人似乎都可以從中找尋到自己的痕跡，或許這也是為了向納什維爾總部證明，一個十幾歲的孩子是可以做到這些的。她的第二張專輯《Fearless》(無畏)則是對這種方式的一種譴責(zé)，Swift把聽眾直接帶到激動人心的露臺看臺的足球賽場，以及刻薄女孩云集的高中。她認(rèn)真對待著自己的少年時代，并要求其他人也這樣做。她像Nicholas Sparks的純愛小說敘述的主人公那樣，她是一個有著淡淡憂愁的天真少女，同時經(jīng)歷著各種關(guān)系，也十分聰明，她知道，并非所有的親吻都在暴風(fēng)雨中告終。

Fearless?straddles the line between country and pop, clinging really only to Swift’s faint, faux-country accent which magically materialized at some point between her hometown of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania and Nashville, and a few bits of fiddle and banjo that flicker in and out of the record. “I write as life happens to me,” Swift told?Rolling Stone?in 2010?and on?Fearless?it’s clear she’s dead serious; a day before she had to turn the album in, she?begged?Borchetta to add the track “Forever & Always,” a break-up song inspired by the pop singer?Joe Jonas. The songs are diaristic not just in their images of fairytale romance and frustrated heartbreak, but in how Swift writes her lyrics like mini-stories with wordy, narrative structures. On “Love Story,” she rips from the play I’d assume is burned into every average American high-schooler’s brain,?Romeo and Juliet,?for a tongue-twister of a chorus (“And I said, Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone…”) She sounds almost breathless by its end. She likes to give a play-by-play, stacking minute summaries of a moment on top of each other like she’s story-boarding the perfect montage out of an indelible memory. “And I stare at the phone, he still hasn’t called/And then you feel so low/You can’t feel nothing at all,” she rattles off on “Forever & Always.”

《Fearless》跨越了鄉(xiāng)村音樂和流行音樂之間的界限，只附帶了一些模糊的，Swift所特有的鄉(xiāng)村口音，這種口音可能來源于她的家鄉(xiāng)懷俄密辛、賓夕法尼亞和納什維爾之間的某個地方，同時，還有幾縷小提琴和班卓琴的音符在這張專輯中若隱若現(xiàn)。Swift在2010年接受 “Rolling Stone”（滾石）采訪時說:“我所創(chuàng)作的那些內(nèi)容都是真實發(fā)生在我身上的”，不難看出，她十分認(rèn)真地創(chuàng)作《Fearless》這張專輯。在她交出專輯的前一天，她請求Borchetta添加單曲《Forever & Always》（天長地久），這是一首受流行歌手Joe Jonas啟發(fā)而創(chuàng)作的分手歌曲。這首歌是日記式的，它不僅記錄了童話般的浪漫故事和令人感到失望的愛情，還包括了Swift所創(chuàng)作的像微型小說一樣冗長、敘事型的結(jié)構(gòu)。在歌曲“Love Story”（愛情故事）中，她從戲劇“Romeo and Juliet”（羅密歐與朱麗葉）中扯出了一句歌詞(“And I said, Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone…”（羅密歐，帶我去一個我們可以獨處的地方……”)，唱到最后她幾乎喘不過氣來。我猜這出戲已經(jīng)深深地烙印在每個普通美國高中生的腦海里了。她喜歡一場接一場的表演，把每一個時刻的每一分鐘的總結(jié)疊加在一起，就像她在講故事一樣——從那些難以磨滅的記憶中拼湊出一段完美的劇情結(jié)構(gòu)?！癆nd I stare at the phone, he still hasn’t called/And then you feel so low/You can’t feel nothing at all,” （攥著電話的我，沒有等來它又一次響起 /這真讓人心灰意冷/你什么都察覺不到，”），她滔滔不絕地說著那句“天長地久”。

Prior to and after?Fearless,?there?was?a?conversation in the press about whether Swift could actually sing, especially as she was still considered an underdog in a genre where her peers were vocal powerhouses like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert. On “Change,” the album’s blow-out finale, her voice loud and guttural in the mix, she proves the skeptics (or as she would say, haters) wrong. But Swift’s talky-delivery and conversational songwriting style—a mixture of personal intimacy and outright fantasy—sounds original and deliberate. With their dramatic arcs and plot twists, these songs often sound like Swift is quite literally speaking as she would to her subject, high off the adrenaline rush of a blindsiding breakup or meeting her new Prince Charming. “When I sit down and write a song, the only person that I'm thinking about in that room is the person that I'm writing the song about,” Swift told?Marie Claire?in 2009. “And what I want them to know and what I wish I could tell them to their face, but I'm going to say it in a song instead.”

在《Fearless》之前和之后，媒體都在討論Swift是否真的會唱歌，尤其與她的同行Carrie Underwood和Miranda Lambert這樣的聲樂大咖相比較時，她難免被認(rèn)為是輸家。在專輯結(jié)尾曲“Change”（改變）中，她的嗓音響亮，并夾雜著喉音，證明了那些懷疑論者(或者她會說，黑子)，錯了。但是Swift的健談式以及對話式的歌曲寫作風(fēng)格——一種帶有個人親昵感同時又給人十足的幻想的組合——聽起來既新穎又從容。憑借其戲劇性的演繹和曲折的情節(jié)，這些歌曲聽起來就是Swift所渴望表達的主題的印證，就像當(dāng)她得知她所喜歡的那個球員分手時以及遇見她的白馬王子時腎上腺素的飆升。（譯者注：歌曲“You Belong with me”以及“Love Story”中MV所敘述的情節(jié)）2009年，Swift在接受“Marie Claire”雜志采訪時說:“當(dāng)我坐下來寫一首歌的時候，我腦海中唯一在想的人就是我寫這首歌的主人公。”“我想讓他們知道什么，我希望我當(dāng)面告訴他們什么，我要用一首歌來代替我告訴他們?！?/p>

She serves straight?Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul?with “Fifteen,” half guardian angel and half alarming guidance counselor to high school freshmen everywhere, reminding them there’s so much they don’t know yet, and name-checking her real-life best friend Abigail. At times, the extreme specificity can feel like a misstep, with the album suddenly taking on the dated air of a copy of Swift’s yearbook we’re somehow privy to. Such is the case with “Hey Stephen,” a twee, passed-in-class love note of a song that could be a brother to Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah.”

她通過歌曲“Fifteen”(十五歲)直接為《心靈雞湯》提供素材，一半是守護天使，一半是給各地高中新生敲響警鐘的輔導(dǎo)員，提醒他們還有太多不知道的東西，并指名道實地說出她現(xiàn)實生活中最好的朋友Abigail的名字。有時候，這種極端的具象可能會讓人錯亂陣腳，因為這張專輯突然呈現(xiàn)出一種不知何處而來的泰勒曾經(jīng)生活的氣息?！癏ey Stephen”（嗨，斯蒂芬）就是這樣一個例子，這是一首故作多情的、講述課堂中傳遞愛的小紙條的歌曲，這可能是Plain White T的“Hey There Delilah”姊妹

What’s remarkable here is Swift’s earnest sweetness. In the years following, she would become a master at biting songs about exes, from “Dear John” to “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” There’s little to none of that vengefully confessional sentiment on?Fearless. The closest she gets is when she calls Jonas a “scared little boy,” on “Forever & Always,” but even that insult, so wholesome, is still understandably tepid for a young woman wading through the minefield that is her first series of serious relationships. The best songs come when her writing is wielded with knife-like precision, revealing feelings with each cut rather than glamorizing the teen tropes of hanging by the telephone or yearning for crushes.

引人注目的是Swift真摯的甜蜜。在接下來的幾年里，從“Dear John”（親愛的約翰）到“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”（我們再也回不去了）里，我們可以看出她成為了寫抨擊前任的辛辣歌曲的大師。在《Fearless》中幾乎沒有那種報復(fù)性的懺悔情緒。可以說她最接近這種極端情緒的時候，就是在“Forever & Always”中，她稱Jonas 是一個“受驚的小男孩”，但即使是這樣的侮辱，如此盛氣凌人，但是對第一次體驗戀愛苦楚的女孩，仍然是溫和的，這是可以理解的。她所創(chuàng)作的最好的歌曲是當(dāng)她像刀刃一樣剖析自己的情感，每一次都流露出真實的自己，而不是那種單純的敘述青少年期間的感情，干巴巴的渴望愛情或者等待著回應(yīng)。

It’s the fantasies that truly define?Fearless; dancing in a storm in your “best dress,” a love that feels like a roller-coaster. While the teen pop stars of the early-aughts like Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears had their highly erotic, sensational hits written by Swedish pop masterminds, there was something novel about Swift being a teenager and writing about her reality in her own terms coming into that same mainstream space, redefining what “teen pop” could sound like in the process. But despite the fact that Swift was drawing from her real life on?Fearless, the album speaks less to the actual reality of a teen girl than to a teen girl’s imaginative desires, desires which, for Swift, are remarkably pure.

真正定義《Fearless》的是幻想;穿著你“最美的裙子”，在暴風(fēng)雨中跳舞，這種愛情就像坐過山車一樣刺激。盡管像Christina Aguilera或Britney Spears等早期的青少年流行歌手都曾有過由瑞典流行音樂大師們所創(chuàng)作的極具情色、轟動一時的熱門歌曲，但Swift作為一名青少年，用自己的話語描述了自己的現(xiàn)況，并且通過這種方式，進入了同樣的主流領(lǐng)域，這是一件令人驚奇的事情。這一舉措，重新定義了“青少年流行”，以及在這一過程中可能擁有的無限可能。盡管Swift創(chuàng)作《Fearless》是取材于她的真實生活，但這張專輯更多的是表達了一個少女的想象力，而非一個少女的真實生活，對Swift來說，這些欲望是非常純粹的。

In 2008, teen pop culture was bending to influences of chastity. Swift’s Disney peers like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers helped popularize purity rings and one of the biggest YA series and its movie adaptation,?Twilight, implicitly preached the virginal values of its Mormon creator. “Love Story,” which culminates in being told to pick out a “white dress” for a wedding, or “Fifteen,” which mourns the fact that her friend Abigail gave “everything she had to a boy,” hit hard with this same audience. Their clean, plucky country-lite production cut through the colorful pop of artists like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé on the radio. As much as Swift was hailed for her ownership over her own image and voice, what she was serving to teen girls was still squeaky clean and parent-approved.

2008年的青少年流行文化多多少少與“貞操”掛上鉤。Swift的迪士尼小伙伴們Miley Cyrus和Jonas Brothers等人幫助推廣了貞潔之戒，以及最受青少年喜歡的電視劇之一《暮光之城(Twilight)》及其改編電影，含蓄地宣揚了這位摩門教徒創(chuàng)作者的純潔的價值觀?！癓ove Story”的閃光點是Taylor能在婚禮上挑選一件屬于自己的“白色禮服”（婚紗），“Fifteen”則是為她的朋友Abigail的感情而悲痛，這位朋友把“她所擁有的一切都給了一個男孩”，在同樣的聽眾中反響強烈。這些純潔、勇敢的鄉(xiāng)村音樂作品也在電臺占據(jù)一席之地，電臺中也不止Lady Gaga和Beyoncé這樣的歌手豐富多彩的流行音樂了。Swift因自己的乖乖女形象和甜美聲線而廣受贊譽，且她向那些十幾歲的女孩們所傳遞的東西仍然非常純凈

On?Fearless,?Swift also cultivated an underdog, misunderstood voice with songs like “You Belong With Me” and “The Best Day” that would, surprisingly, continue to haunt her music well into adulthood. “They don't like what I stand for,” Swift?said?of her classmates in 2008. “They don't like somebody who stands for being sober, who stands for anything happy.” Even the clunky refrain of “You Belong With Me” (“She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts/She’s cheer captain, and I’m on the bleachers”)?became?ripe?for?parody?in later years, a testament to how meaningless any of those signifiers are now. Yet the simplicity of that refrain was the clearest window into Swift’s potential as a mainstream pop songwriter. The explicit modesty of these songs may be fixed in 2008, but the songs nonetheless stick with you; Swift’s great?remake of “Love Story”?in slick?1989-era production is proof of its timelessness.

在《Fearless》中，Swift還在“You Belong with Me”和“The Best Day”中發(fā)出不被理解、被人誤解的聲音，這些問題一直影響著她的音樂，一直到她的成年歲月。“他們不喜歡我喜歡的東西，”Swift在2008年談到她的同學(xué)時說，“他們不喜歡滴酒不沾的人，不喜歡為快樂發(fā)聲的人?！鄙踔吝B“You Belong With Me”里(“她穿短裙，我穿T恤/她是啦啦隊隊長，我只是在看臺上”)這語法錯誤的標(biāo)題句，在后來的幾年里都一直被人改寫、模仿，這證明了這些語言符號現(xiàn)在是多么沒有意義。然而，這句簡單的歌詞是Swift成為主流流行歌曲作者的最清晰的印證。這些歌曲里的大膽謙遜之態(tài)也許會在2008年廣受推崇，但這些歌曲至今仍然會讓你難以忘懷；Swift在《1989》時代再創(chuàng)作的流行版“Love Story”堪稱經(jīng)典，證明了這首歌曲不朽的經(jīng)典。

Fearless?remains not only Swift’s?best-selling album, but her breakthrough into the pop charts, a world which would soon become her permanent home (or a permanent cage, depending on how you respond to her recent material). It was also the last time Swift was simply seen as an artist restless with promise and lived-in inspiration who was deemed a “savant” and a “prodigy” by critics before being saddled with the mark of a tabloid celebrity as well. No moment solidified this more than when Swift was called to the 2009 VMAs stage to accept the “Best Female Video” award for “You Belong With Me,” beating Beyoncé and prompting Kanye West to storm the stage and proclaim Beyoncé’s video better. “I like the lyrics about being a cheerleader and she’s in the bleachers!” West?wrote later?in an apology.

《Fearless》不僅是Swift最暢銷的專輯，而且是她在流行音樂排行榜上的突破，流行世界很快就會成為她永久的家(或者一個永久的牢籠，這取決于你對她最近作品的喜好程度)。這也是Swift被單純視為一個充滿希望和靈感的藝術(shù)家的最后時刻了，被當(dāng)時的評論家們視為“專家”和“天才”，后來Swift就被貼上“流量藝人”的標(biāo)簽。在2009年MTV音樂錄影帶大獎(VMA)上，Swift憑借“You Belong With Me”擊敗Beyoncé，獲得“最佳女歌手錄影帶”(Best Female Video)獎，這一刻更是前文的印證，但這也激怒Kanye West跑上臺搶過Taylor話筒宣稱Beyoncé的錄影帶更好，而West后來在道歉信中寫道“我喜歡這首關(guān)于啦啦隊和看臺的歌的歌詞!”。

In?Fearless, Swift captures and bottles a girlish sense of romantic excitement and suburban anguish that is all too fleeting, before real adulthood and the depths of the world’s cruelty actually hit her. For the rest of her career, she would uncork this nostalgia like champagne and pour it over her pop mega-hits. “This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town,” she sings, as if to remind herself that she’s still just the teen girl next door, a country singer with dreams of a bigger stage. In that all too brief moment, she was right.

在《Fearless》中，Swift捕捉并塑造了一種少女般的浪漫興奮感和郊區(qū)小女孩的痛苦，這種感覺轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝，直到真正的成年生活和世界的殘酷無情真正打擊到她。在她接下來的職業(yè)生涯中，她會像開香檳一樣，把這種懷舊之情傾注到她的流行歌曲中?！斑@不是好萊塢，這就是一個小鎮(zhèn)罷了，”她唱道，仿佛在提醒自己，她仍然只是一個十幾歲的鄰家女孩，一個夢想擁有更大舞臺的鄉(xiāng)村歌手。在那一充滿希望的瞬間，她想對了。