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）

翻譯：Acrees

校正：Cyana Lu

作者：Caryn Ganz

Life is a highway, and Lady Gaga wants to ride it on a unicorn with Jesus strapped to her back all night long. Born This Way is a literal road record — the 25-year-old singer recorded it during her travels promoting 2008 debut The Fame, and follow-up EP The Fame Monster — but it also charts Gaga’s speedy trip from a chick with a disco shtick to our most absurd pop star for our absurd times. Gaga couldn’t have changed course faster if she’d hopped in Marty McFly’s DeLorean, which is essentially what she does on this gloriously weird album. She borrows the grandiose flavor of 1980s radio rock, adds Catholicism, gay pride, and mythical creatures, then stirs it all with a comically gigantic high heel.

如果說人生是一條高速公路，尋常的人們開車上路，Lady Gaga偏要騎在獨角獸上，整晚都把耶穌綁在她背上前行。Born This Way這張里程碑式的專輯，是這位25歲的歌手在為2008年首張專輯《The Fame》和后續(xù)EP《The Fame Monster》做宣傳時錄制出來的，它同時也是Gaga成功蛻變的一份佐證。在08年的VMA，面對坐在頭排的女王Beyonce，坐在后排小丑似的Lady Gaga還在焦急地等待著她的MTV最佳新人獎。而一年后，她已和Beyonce平起平坐，分庭抗禮，爭奪年度女歌手等大獎。在這個荒謬的時代，她成為我們所謂荒謬的流行歌星之一。就算Gaga搭上了Marty McFly的那輛DeLorean，她也不會變化得那樣快，而這樣迅速的轉型正是她隱匿在這張華麗而不可思議的專輯中的本質。

70年代的華麗搖滾、synth pop以及80年代的哥特美學，90年代的house在這張專輯中都得到充分的體現(xiàn)。哥特美學塑造了整張專輯的氣氛，華麗搖滾的浮夸在同名曲“Born This Way”中最為突出。同時同志游行、神圣虛構怪物、黑暗教堂等元素相互糅合滲透，使這個踩著有些滑稽的恨天高的女人，站穩(wěn)了QUEEN的位置。

Like the other dyed-blond Italian-American superstar who blazed this trail, Lady Gaga drags her conflicting obsessions with religion and sex onto the dance floor. Gaga and cowriter Fernando Garibay wedge church organ into the four-on-the-floor banger “Marry the Night” and sedate the beat to a hypnotically sleazy grind for “Bloody Mary.” But despite the title track’s utopian message, Born This Way’s songs are not created equal: Holy dud “Judas” is a frantic puzzle whose pieces never quite fit, and the tracks that compare godliness to self-empowerment are likewise labored. The echoes of Bruce Springsteen on messy “Hair” don’t meld with its cutesy chorus — even E Street sax man Clarence Clemons sounds like he’s not sure why he’s there — and the painfully trite, though well-intentioned lyrics to Madonna rip-off “Born This Way” aren’t helped by a glitter grenade of synthesizers.

和那位另辟蹊徑的金發(fā)意大利裔美國巨星一樣，Lady Gaga將自己對宗教與性的矛盾迷戀拖向舞池。她與Fernando Garibay進行合作，將教堂管風琴放進了快節(jié)拍的“Marry The Night”中，并在“Bloody Mary”中放慢節(jié)拍，采用Joy Division式的bassline鋪下催眠又頹敗的基調，背襯唱詩班，讓歌曲氣氛猶如一座透著邪氣的教堂。不過盡管主打曲中宣揚著烏托邦精神，Born This Way專輯中的曲目卻收到天差地別的對待：“Judas”是很難恰合專輯的瘋狂命題，將對神的虔誠和對自我命運的掌控做類比顯得略為牽強。在“Hair”里E Street的Bruce Springsteen的回聲里卻沒有插入那些矯揉造作的副歌，薩克斯大師Clarence Clemons的助陣演奏顯得不知所措，甚至十分老套。盡管這極其痛苦卻又充滿善意的歌詞借鑒了麥當娜，“Born This Way”也并沒有因其爆炸式合成樂的華麗外殼而更加引人注目。

Excess is Gaga’s riskiest musical gamble, but it’s also her greatest weapon, and Born This Way relentlessly bludgeons listeners’ pleasure centers. “Electric Chapel” pairs divine diva thump with a Van Halen guitar solo and “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” rubs clubby keyboards against the hopeful angst of “Thunder Road,” capturing the effect of spinning a radio dial in the ’80s, when frizzy pop and over-the-top rock mingled outrageously on the airwaves. Even when she sticks to a single sonic path — grimy doom disco on “Government Hooker,” “Schei?e,” and “Heavy Metal Lover” — Gaga coos nutty come-ons that range from the ludicrous (“Put your hands on me, John F. Kennedy”) to the hilariously ludicrous (“I don’t speak German, but I can if you like”) to the awesomely ludicrous (“I want your whiskey mouth all over my blond south”).

無節(jié)制的創(chuàng)新和引鑒各種元素是Gaga在音樂中最冒險的賭注，但也是她最有力的武器，“Born This Way”給予了聽眾愉悅中樞無情的一棒。“Electric Chapel”中Van Halen的電吉他獨奏與這位名伶如神沐浴后的嗓音相得益彰，“Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)”里摩擦著的俱樂部鍵盤與充滿希望的急速鼓點在“Thunder Road”上并駕齊驅，現(xiàn)代流行樂與火力十足的搖滾在電波中狂暴地融合在一起，完美地演繹了80年代的復古曲風。

即使她在“Government Hooker”、 “Schei?e”和“Heavy Metal Lover”這些污穢中摻雜著末日感的disco舞曲中堅持使用單一的音軌，從荒唐的 “Put your hands on me, John F. Kennedy”到滑稽的“I don’t speak German, but I can if you like”再到荒唐離奇的“I want your whiskey mouth all over my blond south”中Gaga古怪地咯咯笑個不停。

The cult of Gaga has already eclipsed her music, so it’s only fitting that she turn to the decade of bloat for inspiration, nicking bits from Pat Benatar, Whitney Houston, and Journey. Producer Mutt Lange feeds “Yoü and I” through the Def Leppard filter and brings in Queen guitarist Brian May to crank the love song into a stompy lighter-waver (echoing Elton John and Spinal Tap). It’s the perfect lead-in to closer “The Edge of Glory,” which sounds exactly like its title, uniting all of Gaga’s contradictory impulses in an ecstatic, anthemic, five-minute lunge to the finish line — there’s strings and synths, Eurodisco beats and saxophone solos, love and death.Calibrating the crazy in her music is no easy task, but Gaga twists the right knobs on Born This Way, applying her ’80s pastiche to throbby grooves and sentimental tunes that’ll pierce the hearts of both Little Monsters and heartland moms. At times, the journey to “Glory” nearly pushes Gaga over the edge, but while most 21st-century pop stars pulverize their imperfections into an Auto-Tuned slurry, she boldly wears her audacity like a meat dress. Lady Gaga certainly wasn’t born this way, but she’s making a convincing case that she’s evolving into our most surreally brilliant pop star.

音樂在Gaga的Cult面前顯得黯然失色，十年間，她引人注目的奇裝異服，桀驁不馴的言論等等，都是她尋找音樂靈感的途徑，從Pat Benatar,、Whitney Houston到Journey，都是她的靈感來源。Mutt Lange制作的“Yoü and I”這首歌借鑒了Def Leppard樂隊并邀請了皇后樂隊的吉他手Brian May，將這首愛情歌曲編成輕柔的旋律。 這正是對這張專輯中緊挨著的“The Edge of Glory”這首歌完美的過渡，這首歌聽起來和它的名字一樣，將Gaga所有矛盾的沖動結合在一起，以一種狂喜而有充滿詩意的態(tài)度向終點沖刺。

弦樂與現(xiàn)代合成器、Eurodisco節(jié)拍與薩克斯管獨奏的混合，是愛與死亡的交融。想要跟上她音樂中瘋狂的節(jié)奏并不是一件容易的事，但Gaga在《Born This Way》中扭轉了方向，她將80年代各種曲風的混成曲添加到跳躍的旋律和傷感的曲調中，刺穿了Little Monsters的心臟。通往這條“榮耀”的路幾乎將Gaga推到了風口浪尖，當21世紀絕大多數(shù)的流行歌星掛上了Auto-Tune，以粉飾自己難以入耳的大走音時，Gaga將肉片裙大膽地穿上身，彰顯著她的勇氣。她并不Born This Way，但她以讓人啞口無言的理由向我們證明她正一步一步成為這個時代最不可思議的天才流行歌星。