Hours?In?Silence音樂：Drake;21?Savage?-?Her?Loss?(Explicit)

這張由北境流行巨星和南方說唱明星帶來的合作混音帶，有著像錄音室專輯的時(shí)長(zhǎng)，看起來像是兩位的絕佳合作，但實(shí)際聽起來在幾乎各方面都差強(qiáng)人意。

There are tracks on?Her Loss,?Drake’s new quasi-collaboration album with?21 Savage, that seem like the natural evolutions of those on 2009’s?So Far Gone. “Hours in Silence,” to take one, is built around a much livelier?Memphis rap song?that sounds as if it’s being replayed underwater; Drake half-croons through his web of gossip and self-mythology, where cryptic comments on exes’ finstas and villains ripped from mob movies weigh equally on his mind. Like he?once did with Lil Wayne, he cedes a little time to a considerably more magnetic rapper from the South before singing, over and over, that things are “my fault,” the lines begging for the “of course not” counterweight from a former lover which would absolve him, but never comes.

That song’s brief turn from 21 finds the Atlanta rapper affecting something just short of a Drake impression, the danger posed by armed enemies made to sound nearly romantic (“They looking for myyyy faaaaace”). But much to its detriment,?Her Loss?relegates 21 to a supporting role, neutering the textural and thematic contrast that sold “Jimmy Cooks,” the beloved “Bound 2”-style hedge tacked onto the end of?Honestly, Nevermind, Drake’s otherwise dance-focused album from earlier this year. There are moments of considered writing and bursts of Drake at or near his mischievous best, but in its middle, the record becomes inert, making the bits of self-conscious misanthropy scan as strained rather than gleeful, as if the id could be focus-grouped.

在Her Loss這張由Drake與21 Savage領(lǐng)銜的準(zhǔn)合作混音帶里，有那么幾首歌聽起來像是由2009年Drake的混音帶So Far Gone演變而來的。就挑Hours in Silence這一首來說吧，基本是以活力四射的孟菲斯說唱歌曲為基調(diào)制作的，就是把伴奏弄成是像在水下的感覺而已。Drake在歌里就他本人的流言蜚語和經(jīng)歷半吟唱著，毒舌地吐槽著他前任的ins私人賬號(hào)，說著那些幫派電影里的惡棍們?cè)谒哪恐械牡匚?。就像Drake之前和Lil?Wayne合作時(shí)做的那樣，他在開唱之前先給同樣來自南部的更具魅力的說唱歌手表演一番。在后面的部分里，Drake反反復(fù)復(fù)地唱著“my?fault”，以祈求他的前愛人的一句“of?course?not”來赦免他犯下的錯(cuò)，但對(duì)方卻從未原諒過他。給人便是這種感覺。

這首歌開頭很快就來到了21的verse，他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己這個(gè)亞特蘭大說唱歌手多多少少受到了drake的熏陶，那種全副武裝的幫派成員散發(fā)出的危險(xiǎn)氛圍在這里聽起來有點(diǎn)浪漫（“They?looking?for?myyyy?faaaaace~~~~~~~~~~~”）。但差強(qiáng)人意的是，在Her?Loss里21?Savage淪為了配角，再也沒有在Drake上一舞曲專?Honestly,?Nevermind時(shí)結(jié)尾聽到全專最佳Jimmy Cooks的那種風(fēng)格突變的戲劇性的感覺，就像在Kanye的Yeezus結(jié)尾聽到Bound 2那樣。歌里很多時(shí)刻都可以稱得上是Drake最好或近乎最好的作詞，都表現(xiàn)到了極好。但到了歌曲的中間部分，就變得有點(diǎn)沉悶了，讓drake憤世嫉俗的自我意識(shí)宣泄從令人愉悅變得牽強(qiáng)，仿佛是在將本我公布于眾批判。

Spin?Bout?U音樂：Drake;21?Savage?-?Her?Loss?(Explicit)

This tension between the acutely memorable and the vaguely forgettable is embodied by the production. The submarine Juicy J and DJ Paul flip from “Hours in Silence” is joined by reworks of Ginuwine (“Treacherous Twins”), B.G.O.T.I. (“Spin Bout U”), and the same Isley Brothers song that previously became JAY-Z and Too $hort’s “A Week Ago” (“Privileged Rappers), all of which play on a late-2000s production style—now effective bait for nostalgists— that treated samples as found sounds to be warped into an alien texture. This suits both Drake and 21’s voices: The former’s ecstatic vocals on “Treacherous Twins” alone make?Her Loss?worth the streaming bandwidth. But the original compositions for the album are less effective, hampered by mixes that make each element of each beat seem oddly isolated; it makes the music sound cheaper than it surely is. (There is a different kind of cheapness at intermittent play: The hammily stupid Daft Punk flip on “Circo Loco” and the O’Jays sample that pops up halfway through “Middle of the Ocean” only to invite unflattering comparisons to?AZ and Nas?and?Dipset.) Still, tucked between the sameness are pockets of strangeness—like the drawn-out instrumental ending to “Jumbotron Shit Poppin,” at once triumphant and melancholy.

這種強(qiáng)烈的洗腦感和茫然地過耳遍忘的緊張矛盾在專輯的制作上便表現(xiàn)出來?！霸谒住敝谱髁薍ours in Silence的Juicy J 和DJ Paul又竄出來改編了Ginuwine和B.G.O.T.I. 的作品分別制作出了Treacherous Twins和Spin Bout U，此外還采樣了Jay-Z和Too $hort以Isley Brothers為采樣源的作品A Week Ago，制作出了Privileged Rappers。以上的這些歌曲都有點(diǎn)2000年末制作的那味，即是將采樣歌曲扭曲切分讓其完全聽不出來是原曲的感覺，這種采樣方式現(xiàn)在聽來很難不讓人回味無窮。而這同樣都很適合讓Drake和21的聲音發(fā)揮，前者在Treacherous Twins中輕快的人聲就足以讓專輯的值得這么多播放量了。但專輯中的其他作品的表現(xiàn)就沒那么好了，它們的混音效果讓每個(gè)伴奏的不同元素都突兀地毫無聯(lián)系；這也讓每首歌聽起來都比實(shí)際上更加廉價(jià)。（專輯制作上各式各樣的廉價(jià)在曲序上斷斷續(xù)續(xù)地呈現(xiàn)著：比如歌曲Circo Loco對(duì)Daft Punk歌曲的夸張又拙劣的改編；還有在歌曲Middle of the Ocean中間部分冒出來的組合O’ Jays，而這只會(huì)招來人們對(duì)AZ和Nas及組合Dispet不太敢恭維的比較。）盡管如此，在專輯千篇一律之間還是有一些奇異之處的，就比如歌曲Jumbotron Shit Poppin那冗長(zhǎng)的結(jié)尾，既得意又有憂郁之感。

Broke?Boys音樂：Drake;21?Savage?-?Her?Loss?(Explicit)

Things never quite coalesce. On the intriguingly atonal first half of “Broke Boys”—a beat odder and heavier than anything Drake has rapped over in ages—he sleepwalks through a passage that aims to tout his decades-long commercial dominance but communicates, instead, just how flat his output has become, a project that now privileges year-over-year incrementalism over fits of excitement. “Nothing had changed,” he raps, “I’m just harder to please.” He then notes that Ferrari has begun to produce SUVs, and that he and his friends have already ordered several. “We ain’t got a choice,” he says. You imagine him pointing to a conveyor belt.

每個(gè)音樂元素都并非都向著一個(gè)方向走。比如歌曲Broke Boys無調(diào)得有趣的前半部分，它的伴奏比這么多年來drake用過的任何一首都要奇怪和黑暗。他像夢(mèng)游一樣在伴奏上隨便唱著，目的是為了宣揚(yáng)他在十多年的音樂生涯里的商業(yè)霸主地位，但實(shí)際上傳遞出來的卻是他的作品現(xiàn)在聽起來是多么的乏味，專輯也是更傾向于年復(fù)一年的“交作業(yè)”，而不是由熱情驅(qū)使了?！笆裁炊紱]有改變”他唱道，“只是我現(xiàn)在更難滿足了?！苯又鴇rake又唱到法拉利現(xiàn)在都開始生產(chǎn)SUV了，而他和他的老鐵們都訂購(gòu)了好幾輛了?！拔覀儧]有選擇”，他說。你可以想象到Drake是指著一條流水線產(chǎn)業(yè)鏈上的傳送帶說出這句話的。

At its beginning,?Her Loss?hints at a looser, more natural interplay. After a brief intro from Atlanta’s?Young Nudy—whose roving inner-monologue style would have been a welcome destabilizing force on this album—Drake opens “Rich Flex” with the kind of rapping-to-one-another hook (“21, can you do somethin’ for me?”) that blows past?So Far Gone?to recall groups from the 1980s and early ‘90s. And throughout, he and 21 are most effective when they either imitate one another, as 21 does on “Hours in Silence” and Drake does on “Major Distribution,” or when they retreat to their opposite stylistic poles: Drake bounding across “BackOutsideBoyz” like the only man to ever be sad in a nightclub, 21 rapping on “More M’s” that “I been in them rooms/I never did no contemplating,” his trademark economy of language unsettling as ever.

在專輯的開頭即暗示了Her Loss這張專輯里慵懶自然的相互作用。亞特蘭大說唱歌手Young Nudy在Rich Flex里作了一段簡(jiǎn)短的intro，那種律動(dòng)地獨(dú)白式風(fēng)格本該可以作為這張專輯里受大眾歡迎的不穩(wěn)定基調(diào)力量的。隨后，Drake以對(duì)話式的副歌開啟了專輯的篇章(“21,?can?you?do?somethin’?for?me?”)?，那種So?Far?Gone的味道讓人回想起了80和90年代的組合們。從整張專輯來說，兩個(gè)化學(xué)反應(yīng)最強(qiáng)烈的情況就是以下兩種：drake和21互相模仿對(duì)方時(shí)，比如說Hours in Silence里的21或Major Distribution里的drake；亦或是唱著和他們風(fēng)格完全相反的歌時(shí)，比如Drake在BackOutsideBoyz里給人的那種“俱樂部只有我是心碎男孩”的感覺，21在More M’s里唱著“我曾與他們的處境相同，但我從未猶豫不決”，21標(biāo)志性的語言藝術(shù)一如既往地令人不安。

Rich?Flex音樂：Drake;21?Savage?-?Her?Loss?(Explicit)

It’s the muddy, Drake-dominated middle ground that mostly doesn’t work. As the album’s title seems to promise,?Her Loss?is littered with bitter, very online barbs for women who have betrayed Drake and 21, wronged them in other, indeterminate ways, or simply drifted into the digital expanse. Both artists, but especially Drake, have staked songs on this going back years; what drags down?Her Loss?is not so much a moral failing as a creative one, the sense that Drake is?turning a big dial?labeled MISOGYNY while looking to an imagined audience for approval. This is occasionally colorful (from “On BS”: “I blow a half a million on you hoes, I'm a feminist”), but more often, it’s tiresome, even sort of depressing. Quips about group chats sound as if they’ve been sourced from Twitter, and punchlines like the?already infamous one?that trades on rumors?Megan Thee Stallion?was lying about being shot by?Tory Lanez?cast Drake as desperate to provoke, rather than in his ideal mode: someone tortured by the competing impulses to withhold and to overshare.

這含糊的以Drake為主導(dǎo)的中心地帶并沒有派上什么用場(chǎng)。正如專輯的標(biāo)題看起來所預(yù)示的那樣，Her Loss里充滿著對(duì)所有背叛過Drake和21的女人們的挖苦和冷嘲熱諷，以其他不確定的方式冤枉著她們；或是單純地往數(shù)據(jù)方面講。兩位藝人，特別是Drake，都“押”了許多歌曲在這音樂頹廢的一年；與其說專輯Her Loss是一次道德上的失敗，不如說是創(chuàng)作上的令人失望。給人感覺是Drake推著一個(gè)標(biāo)榜著厭女主義的大轉(zhuǎn)盤向他設(shè)想的聽眾們尋求認(rèn)可。歌曲On BS里的歌詞“I blow a half a million on you hoes, I'm a feminist（我在你們這些女人身上花了50萬美元，我可算是個(gè)女權(quán)主義者了）”偶爾聽起來算有意思，但更多是無趣，甚至有點(diǎn)令人失望。歌詞里一些關(guān)于群聊的風(fēng)趣話給人感覺是從推特上偷的，還有一些punchlines，比如利用Megan Thee Stallion在被Tory Lanez槍擊一事上撒謊的謠言，將Drake刻畫成一個(gè)渴望挑事的人，而不是他和聽眾理想中的模樣：一個(gè)被既想壓抑情緒與又熱衷于分享間的相互矛盾折磨的人。