翻譯：Nomanlandever

A decade ago, Lady Gaga created an enormous, bravura flex of electronic pop. An anniversary edition arrives with six “reimagined” versions of its songs by LGBTQ+ artists and allies.

十年前，Lady Gaga做出一張偉大前衛(wèi)先鋒的電子流行專輯。十周年紀(jì)念版專輯額外收錄六首LGBTQ+盟友藝人“重新構(gòu)造”版的歌曲。

Lady Gaga?was wrapped in raw beef when she?announced?her third album at 2010’s MTV VMAs. The meat dress was only a warm-up.?Born This Way, first released in May 2011, is a bravura flex of electronic pop as big as a Bosch canvas that charges between hair metal riffs, taint-tightening bass, and synths that crackle like hot coals. On her best front-to-back album, Gaga belts each crushing hook with every fiber of her chest, with personal pain turned into placard-ready manifestos. She sings like she’s making a blood pact.

Lady Gaga在2010年VMA頒獎(jiǎng)典禮上宣布她的第三張專輯(第二張錄音室專輯)即將發(fā)行時(shí)，她身裹生牛肉。而牛肉裝只是預(yù)熱?！禕orn This Way》于2011年5月首度發(fā)行，這是一張偉大前衛(wèi)先鋒的電子流行專輯，猶如杰羅姆博世的畫作一樣偉大，交織著流行金屬的重復(fù)樂(lè)段、緊繃的貝斯和火炭般噼里啪啦的合成器音效。在這張她整體性最好的專輯中，Lady Gaga嘔心瀝血地編織每一處猛烈的hook旋律，將個(gè)人傷痛蛻變?yōu)橛涡袠?biāo)語(yǔ)的宣言，她的歌唱如同是在撰寫血契，某種程度上是這樣的。

In a way she was. On?Born This Way, Gaga, who is bisexual, made pop her pulpit and pledged her fight for LGBTQ+ rights in alliance with her young, queer fanbase. In February 2011, the album’s bright, brash title track became the first U.S. No. 1 hit to directly reference the trans community, with the lyrics, “No matter gay, straight, or bi/Lesbian, transgender life/I’m on the right track, baby/I was born to survive.”

在專輯《Born This Way》中，身為雙性戀的她將流行音樂(lè)視作她的講壇，發(fā)誓與她年輕的酷兒粉絲們一起為L(zhǎng)GBTQ+群體權(quán)利而戰(zhàn)。在2011年2月，激昂傲然的專輯同名曲"Born This Way"成為美國(guó)第一首直接提及跨性別群體的冠單，其歌詞是?“No matter gay, straight, or bi/Lesbian, transgender life/I’m on the right track, baby/I was born to survive.”

As if to reinforce that these songs are for everyone, Gaga now marks 10 years of?Born This Way?with six “reimagined” versions of its songs by LGBTQ+ artists and allies. It works best when they scorch the earth.?Big Freedia, who was?supposed to be?part of the album back in 2011, turns “Judas” into exuberant New Orleans bounce with drumline snares, squealing sax, and a gospel choir;?The Highwomen’s “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” is inviting folk-rock that could be an early?Heart?treasure. The faithful covers from Years & Years, Orville Peck, and Kylie Minogue are less distinctive; most unforgivable is Ben Platt’s mawkish take of “Yoü and I,” which already has two wonderful, and very different, remixes from?Mark Taylor?and?Metronomy.

似乎是為了強(qiáng)調(diào)專輯是獻(xiàn)給世間萬(wàn)物的作品，Gaga在十周年紀(jì)念版專輯額外收錄六首LGBTQ+盟友藝人“重新構(gòu)造”版的歌曲?？妥枋植扇　敖雇翍?zhàn)略”（如軍隊(duì)撤退時(shí)銷毀一切敵軍可利用之物）的改編效果最佳。原本應(yīng)在2011年參與專輯制作的Big Freedia，將"Judas"改編成氣派十足的新奧爾良bounce說(shuō)唱風(fēng)音樂(lè)，并加入軍鼓樂(lè)隊(duì)、呼嘯的薩克斯與福音唱詩(shī)班。由The Highwomen演繹的"Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)"是魅力十足的民謠搖滾風(fēng)，仿佛是早期Heart樂(lè)隊(duì)的遺珠歌曲。Years & Years、Orville Peck與Kylie Minogue幾位誠(chéng)意十足的翻唱就遜色些，最不能忍的是Ben Platt對(duì)"Yoü and I"矯揉造作的翻唱，況且這首歌已經(jīng)有Mark Taylor與Metronomy的兩個(gè)精彩紛呈又彰顯個(gè)性的混音版本了。

A decade ago,?Born This Way?was mostly co-produced by Gaga with RedOne, DJ White Shadow, and her then-musical director Garibay. The “Banditos,” as Gaga called the crew, made the record over 18 months on her 2009-2011 tour. They worked around her erratic schedule—Gaga?claimed?to hardly sleep, subsisting on “music and coffee”—and set up laptops backstage and a makeshift vocal booth in her tour bus. On-the-road recording isn’t uncommon for a busy pop star—Rihanna?recorded 2011’s?Talk That Talk?in a similar fashion—but the time crunch distills the kinetic energy of Gaga’s stadium-sized life straight into music. If it sounds like she’s singing every phrase with an exclamation point, well, it’s likely because she was due on stage in 10. There was also a practical reason for urgency: Incredibly, given the commercial success of?The Fame?and its sibling EP?The Fame Monster, Gaga’s Monster Ball live dates had?put her?three million dollars in debt, and she needed the next record to get her back on the road and out of the red.

十年前，專輯《Born This Way》主要由Lady Gaga與RedOne，DJ White Shadow和她當(dāng)時(shí)的音樂(lè)總監(jiān)Fernando Garibay共同制作。這個(gè)被Lady Gaga稱作"Banditos"的團(tuán)隊(duì)，在她2009-2011年的巡演期間，歷時(shí)18個(gè)月做出這張專輯。他們?cè)谒h忽不定的日程表中開展工作——當(dāng)時(shí)Lady Gaga表示自己幾乎不怎么睡覺(jué)，靠音樂(lè)和咖啡度日——并在演出后臺(tái)購(gòu)置筆記本電腦，在巡演大巴上設(shè)置臨時(shí)錄音室。對(duì)忙碌的流行明星來(lái)說(shuō)，巡演大巴上的錄音棚并非新奇事物——Rihanna便以類似方式在2011年錄制好專輯《Talk That Talk》。但火燒眉毛的Lady Gaga將體育館巡演生活里激情澎湃的能量提取至音樂(lè)中。如果你感覺(jué)專輯每句話都像被感嘆號(hào)附體一樣的話，那么很可能是因?yàn)樗牒缶鸵吓_(tái)了。這樣做還有一個(gè)現(xiàn)實(shí)的原因：很神奇的是，考慮到《The Fame》和姊妹EP專輯《The Fame Monster》大爆的商業(yè)成績(jī)，Lady Gaga的Monster Ball巡演反而使她負(fù)債300萬(wàn)美元，因此她急需下一張專輯使她重回正軌，擺脫負(fù)債。

She?called?the album “a giant musical-opus theater piece.” It was?made?to be performed on a stage set up like a Transylvanian castle, and is laced with enjoyably over-the-top gothic flourishes: Gregorian chants on “Bloody Mary,” echoey organ on “Highway Unicorn.” Created in arenas, for arenas,?Born This Way’s Vatican-sized ambitions imbue the album with a holistic sense of scale. With the exception of?Taylor Swift’s?Reputation, mainstream pop hasn’t sounded this big since. And it set a bar for promo excess in the iTunes era too, with stunts that dropped a spider-silk blanket across pop culture. Gaga arrived at the Grammys in an egg, wore prosthetic horns, and partnered with corporations like Google, Starbucks, and Zynga, the tech company whose popular FarmVille app offered in-game album previews and motorbike-riding sheep.

她稱這張專輯是"一部偉大的音樂(lè)劇作品"，專輯就是為能在一個(gè)類似特蘭西瓦尼亞城堡的舞臺(tái)上表演而生，精心加入了過(guò)多驚喜的哥特元素："Bloody Mary"里的格列高利圣詠（教皇格列高利一世采用，常無(wú)伴奏），"Highway Unicorn"里在體育館錄制的的回聲風(fēng)琴，也是為體育館巡演而生的歌曲?！禕orn This Way》堪比羅馬教廷的雄心使整張專輯大氣磅礴。在《Born This Way》后，除了Taylor Swift的專輯《reputation》之外，流行音樂(lè)從未如此宏大。這張專輯也在iTunes下載時(shí)代設(shè)置了一個(gè)高強(qiáng)度宣傳的門檻，其噱頭炒作在流行文化中無(wú)孔不入，掀起軒然大波。Lady Gaga帶著人造犄角，躺在蛋殼里出席2011年第53屆格萊美頒獎(jiǎng)典禮，隨后與Google, Starbucks及Zynga等公司開展合作。Zynga是一家科技公司，其廣受歡迎的《FarmVille》應(yīng)用程序在游戲中可以看到專輯預(yù)覽和騎摩托車的綿羊。

Gaga often sounds like she has gazed into the depths of hell and is back to tell the tale. (“I have been for three years baking cakes, and now I’m going to bake a cake that has a bitter jelly,” she?said?of her music’s evolution). “Government Hooker” is a sneering dance stormer that sends up powerful creeps and, with DJ White Shadow’s aircraft hangar-sized techno, takes her pointed polemic to the rave. Amid the airtight industrial pop of “Schei?e,” the best non-single of Gaga’s career, she rebukes the dumb shit that trailed her—the?sexism, the?transphobia—with a monster hook sung in pseudo-German and vulcanized synths that squeal like a Formula 1 starting grid. Caustic messages make?Born This Way’s triumphant moments feel alluringly sweet. The fist-pumping album closer “The Edge of Glory” soars with self-belief, as Gaga’s repetitions of “I’m on the edge/The edge/The edge” build momentum like an athlete spinning the hammer throw.

Lady Gaga很多時(shí)候聽起來(lái)像是在凝視地獄的深淵，并回來(lái)敘述整個(gè)故事。(“我已經(jīng)烤了三年蛋糕了，現(xiàn)在我要烤一個(gè)帶苦味果凍的蛋糕，”她談到自己的音樂(lè)演變歷程時(shí)說(shuō)道)。"Government Hooker"是一首咄咄逼人的激烈舞曲且引起大街小巷的討論，在DJ White Shadow飛機(jī)庫(kù)般的techno制作下，Lady Gaga輿論爭(zhēng)議也被帶入到這首電子舞曲中。在Lady Gaga職業(yè)生涯最好的非主打單曲"Schei?e"中，Lady Gaga譴責(zé)那些牽連到她的愚蠢事物——性別歧視，跨性別恐懼癥，用假德語(yǔ)唱著怪物級(jí)的hook旋律，伴隨著硫化的合成器音效和賽車起步時(shí)的鳴叫聲。外界的刻薄言論使《Born This Way》凱旋而歸的時(shí)刻格外安撫人心。握拳慶祝的專輯收尾曲"The Edge of Glory"是展翅高飛的自信，Lady Gaga重復(fù)的那句（歌詞）“I’m on the edge/The edge/The edge”，仿佛運(yùn)動(dòng)員旋轉(zhuǎn)鏈球一樣蓄勢(shì)待發(fā)。

She switches vocal styles like she changes satellite-dish-sized hats. On the scuzzy disco-pop “Heavy Metal Lover,” she coos coquettishly before flipping to Auto-Tuned camp. “Dirty pony, I can’t wait to hose you down,” she growls. The wonderfully blasphemous “Judas” is pop-house whiplash with the drama of Mosaic law. You can guarantee that some gay bar, somewhere in the world, is blasting it right now, with or without the video starring Norman Reedus as the sleazy daddy love interest. “Hooker prostitute wench vomits her mind,” she sings, as if catching darts in her teeth and spitting them back.

她變換著不同聲樂(lè)風(fēng)格，如同變換不同天線接收器般大的帽子(Marry The Night造型)。在暗黑的迪斯科流行歌曲"Heavy Metal Lover"中，她先撒嬌地低語(yǔ)著，?Auto-Tune變聲后她突然咆哮著唱道："?“Dirty pony, I can’t wait to hose you down,”?。極褻瀆神靈的"Judas"是流行文化中對(duì)摩西律法的鞭撻，你可以隨時(shí)找到在世界某個(gè)角落的Gay吧正在播放這首歌，無(wú)論Norman Reedus是否出演了這首歌MV里卑鄙的爹地戀人。（歌詞）“Hooker prostitute wench vomits her mind,” Lady Gaga唱道，如同用牙齒咬住飛鏢再扔回給他們。

Gaga described?Born This Way’s title track as a “magical message song” for the Prop 8 era, and, she?wrote?on Instagram recently, it was inspired by disco artist Carl Bean’s fabulous 1977?cover?of the gay liberation classic “I Was Born This Way.” Of the whole record, it’s the song that has aged least well, both for its essentialist message and dated electropop. As Owen Pallett?recognized?in a 2014 article for Slate, its major-key composition was a departure from the “sexy, spooky” minor-key songwriting of Gaga’s biggest hits. In an aim to reach everyone, she broke from her own winning formula. In 2011, the unsubtle “Born This Way” may have been what the world needed, and it’s intensely meaningful to?many queer people—including Gaga, who has the phrase tattooed on her left thigh. Still, you wish a better song had become the?de facto?soundtrack to LGBTQ+ rights in the Obama era. Ten years on, it’s a weak link in an album that has so much more to say about freedom and autonomy, and, elsewhere, embraces being an outsider while pausing to question the social norms that push some of us to the fringes.

Lady Gaga將專輯同名曲"Born This Way"描述為一首涉及加州8號(hào)提案的“魔幻又信息量巨大的歌曲”，她最近也在Instagram上寫道，這首歌的靈感來(lái)自迪斯科藝人Carl Bean在1977年發(fā)行的經(jīng)典平權(quán)翻唱歌曲"I Was Born This Way"。在整張專輯中，這是最不過(guò)時(shí)最不貶值的歌曲，因其本質(zhì)主義的歌詞內(nèi)容和過(guò)時(shí)的電音風(fēng)格有點(diǎn)過(guò)時(shí)。正如Owen Pallett在2014年在《Slate》雜志發(fā)表的內(nèi)容，歌曲的大調(diào)作曲不同于Gaga其他熱門歌曲的“性感、詭異”的小調(diào)作曲。為了使所有人都能感同身受，Lady Gaga打破自身的制勝之道。在2011年，直言坦率的"Born This Way"可能正是這個(gè)世界所需要的，它對(duì)許多酷兒人士意義深遠(yuǎn)，包括Lady Gaga自己，她把歌名紋在了她左大腿上。盡管如此，你還是期望能有一首更好的歌曲來(lái)代表奧巴馬時(shí)期的LGBTQ+平權(quán)主題曲。十年后再看，這首歌長(zhǎng)篇累贅的自由平權(quán)內(nèi)容是其專輯的薄弱部分。并且在專輯其他地方，她作為一個(gè)局外人，會(huì)暫停質(zhì)問(wèn)那些忽視邊緣人群的社會(huì)問(wèn)題。

These days, it’s cool for pop stars to play the bad guy or the vengeful ex. But it was less so in the early ’10s, when the charts were cluttered with party-rocking rubbish and?self-affirmative?dreck. It’s hard to rankle at Gaga’s version of outsider empowerment, perhaps because it’s rooted in something real. On the joyful “Bad Kids,” a song?inspired?by hearing fans’ stories while on the road, Gaga makes high school jibes sound like phrases you’d want to wear on a badge: a “degenerate young rebel,” a “bitch,” a “jerk,” a “brat,” “a selfish punk [who] really should be smacked.” At other times, she looks unflinchingly inwards. “Marry the Night,” a song about Gaga’s pre-fame years on the Lower East Side, puts a megaphone to a bruised mind racing with survival instinct. A cinematic?video?seems to reference the sexual assaults she suffered at 19, which, she said in a 2019 interview,?led to hospitalization?and a “psychotic break.” These details, which she didn’t share at the time of?Born This Way’s initial release, cast a starker shadow on this hustler’s anthem. It was always a fantastic soundtrack for stomping down the street; it’s also a solemn vow to “marry the dark” despite the violence that can lurk in its shadows.

如今，流行歌星的反派人設(shè)或復(fù)仇前任似乎是件很酷的事、但在10年代初不是這樣，當(dāng)時(shí)的排行榜上充斥著一堆“party rocking”的垃圾歌曲和雞湯廢話歌曲。我們很難反感Lady Gaga的局外人賦權(quán)方式，或許是因?yàn)槟鞘枪亲永镎鎸?shí)的一面。在歡快的"Bad Kids"中，一首靈感來(lái)自Lady Gaga在旅途中傾聽粉絲講述的親身經(jīng)歷的歌曲，將高中時(shí)期的嘲笑話語(yǔ)變?yōu)槿藗兿肟淘诨照律系臉?biāo)語(yǔ)：如"墮落的年輕叛逆小子"，“bitch,” ，?“jerk,” 、"不聽話的小孩"、"自私又欠揍的朋克一族"。在其他時(shí)刻，Lady Gaga會(huì)毫無(wú)畏縮地深挖自己的內(nèi)心。"Marry the Night"是一首講述Lady Gaga成名前在紐約下東城時(shí)生活舉步維艱，盡管內(nèi)心早已千瘡百孔，但依舊拿大喇叭鼓勵(lì)自己堅(jiān)強(qiáng)勇敢的歌曲。有一段視頻似乎提到了她在19歲時(shí)遭受性侵，她在2019年的一次采訪中提到這段MV電影片段是講她19歲時(shí)遭受性侵，最終住院治療和"精神崩潰"的經(jīng)歷。在首次發(fā)行專輯《Born This Way》時(shí)，她并未透露這些細(xì)節(jié)，這些細(xì)節(jié)又使這位詐騙者的神曲更為陰暗。這首歌絕對(duì)是你走在街上跺腳狂嗨的好歌，它也是"嫁給黑夜"時(shí)的莊嚴(yán)誓詞，盡管黑暗中潛伏著暴力。

Born This Way’s reclaimed confidence goes down to the half-woman, half-machine composite on its cover, a mutant gynoid that screams with the fury of a saint. It’s ridiculous, ugly. People hate it. It’s also a perfectly punkish match for this scrappy colossus of an album, an apex of off-the-leash creativity and unapologetic commerce. It still makes you want to live without the Schei?e—but is just as suited for a world full of it. For an hour it makes you feel like you are made of steel.

《Born This Way》重獲的自信還得歸結(jié)于專輯封面的半女半機(jī)車造型，一個(gè)基因突變的女仿生人，伴隨著圣人般的憤怒尖叫著。很荒謬，很丑陋，人們討厭它。不過(guò)朋克風(fēng)的完美詮釋蠻適合這張專輯的，不連貫的宏大概念，無(wú)拘無(wú)束的巔峰創(chuàng)作水平，無(wú)需證明的商業(yè)成績(jī)。這張專輯仍想讓你生活中沒(méi)有Schei?e（煩心事）的世界，但它同樣適合一個(gè)充滿它的世界?；ㄒ粋€(gè)小時(shí)聆聽這張專輯，你就會(huì)感受到你身體像是鋼鐵做的一樣。