搬運(yùn)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：Ming Kwok

審譯：Ryan-Chopin

排版：Ryan-Chopin

Taylor Swift在《Lover》中達(dá)到了個人和音樂自由的新高峰

By the time “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” arrives on?Lover, her seventh and most epic album,?Taylor Swift?has entered uncharted territory. For one thing, it’s the 17th song here, and none of her previous albums have run more than 16 tracks. (Lover?actually contains 18.) More importantly, it’s not about being 16 or 22 or even her not-insignificant current age, 29. It’s about being six or seven, and walking home from school in the snow: “Lost my gloves / You give me one / Wanna hang out? / Sounds like fun.” There’s no beat, no banjo, no metaphors or coded messages. There is, instead, deconstructed steel drum, horn and cooing voices — Animal Collective as interpreted by hip-hop-savvy pop-producers-of-the-moment Louis Bell and Frank Dukes, the song’s co-writers. It’s like the end of?2001: A Space Odyssey, where a long turbulent journey through outer (and, naturally, inner) space culminates in the sudden appearance of a planet-sized fetus. For two and a half minutes, Swift regresses past all the drama and heartache she’s cataloged since her teen years to curl up in a weird little pocket of beauty.

隨著“It’s Nice to Have a Friend”加入了Taylor史詩級的七?！禠over》，Taylor Swift進(jìn)入了一個全新的領(lǐng)域。一方面，這是這張專輯的第十七首歌，而之前她沒有任何一張專輯有超過16首歌（Lover實(shí)際上有18首）。更重要的是，這不是像16歲或是22歲的作品，更不是關(guān)于Taylor現(xiàn)在（隨口一提）的實(shí)際年齡---29歲，而更像是6、7歲的Taylor在雪中從學(xué)校回家：“把我的手套弄丟了/你借了我一只/要一起出去玩嗎/聽起來不錯耶?！睕]有明快的節(jié)奏，沒有班卓琴聲，沒有暗喻或是任何隱含的信息，取而代之的是散架的鋼桶聲、號角的咕咕聲，還融合了各種動物的聲音，這都出自嘻哈樂代表人物以及時下杰出的流行樂制作人Louis Bell和Frank Dukes，他們都是歌曲的合作創(chuàng)作者。這就像電影《2001太空漫游》的結(jié)尾，經(jīng)歷了漫長的外太空混亂之旅后星孩突然出現(xiàn)了。在這兩分半鐘里，Taylor后悔從她青少年時代到之后的所有抓馬和心碎時刻的所有過去，她小心翼翼地將這些過往編織成一個奇特而美麗的小袋子。

Swift has always been vulnerable, of course. And just as obviously, that vulnerability has been her strength. Female pop stars since Madonna have been expected to constantly reinvent themselves, lest it seem like they’re aging — an impossible standard that vexed Swift contemporaries like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. In sharing her actual feelings about relationships chronicled by the tabloids — and parrying the entire internet’s judgements of those feelings — Swift helped open up a space for Ariana Grande to directly address Sean, Pete, and Malcolm on “Thank U, Next” (to name one glorious example). When Swift went pop, that wasn’t so much a transformation as an annexation of new territory. Grande might’ve picked up something here, too, with her triumphant embrace of hip-hop-style surprise drops. If Ariana, Billie, Halsey and others seem so effortlessly themselves, it’s in part because Swift worked so hard at speaking her truth and smiting her enemies.

Taylor確實(shí)擁有一顆脆弱敏感的心，但這份脆弱同時也是她的鎧甲。幾乎從Madonna開始，很多流行女歌手就一直被期待著要不斷地改造自己，唯恐他人發(fā)現(xiàn)她們在變老——這種不現(xiàn)實(shí)的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)激怒了與Taylor同期的其他歌手，例如Lady Gaga和Katy Perry。她先是道出關(guān)于各種媒體報道自身戀情的真實(shí)感受，然后回避網(wǎng)絡(luò)上所有對這些感受的批評——Taylor實(shí)際上為Ariana Grande在“Thank U, Next”當(dāng)中直接點(diǎn)名Sean, Pete, and Malcolm等前男友鋪了路（這只是其中一個突出的例子）。當(dāng)初Taylor選擇了流行樂，與其說是一種轉(zhuǎn)型，還不如說是她對新領(lǐng)域的一種吸納融合。Ariana也做了同樣的選擇，畢竟她的新專輯也成功地融合了驚艷的嘻哈樂節(jié)奏。如果Ariana, Billie, Halsey還有其他歌手都看起來毫不費(fèi)力地成功了，只能說有一部分要?dú)w功于Taylor在打造吐露真心以及有仇必報的形象上下了苦工。

Lover?is, fittingly, evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But nevertheless it feels like an epiphany: free and unhurried, governed by no one concept or outlook, it represents Swift at her most liberated, enjoying a bit of the freedom she won for her cohort. Made mainly in collaboration with?Jack Antonoff, female songwriting ally nonpareil, the album’s dominant sound is sleekly updated Eighties pop-rock. In a bonus making-of track destined for a Target edition of the album, Swift tells Antonoff she wants a “dreamy guitar-y throwback, but not camp throwback” sound for the title track, and that’s pretty much the vibe. (Think recent Carly Rae Jepsen, if she made actual hits.) Swift loads “Paper Rings” up with a “1-2-3-4,” a “hey! ho!” and a key change for a jittery bit of Cars-meets-Eddie Money-meets-Go-Go’s delight. On the terrific “Cruel Summer,” written with Antonoff and Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent), she tells a simple tale of tortured love in under three minutes of pure pleasure, with what sounds like a smattering of talk box. When she sings “Out the window / I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below,” there’s no question you’re supposed to picture John Cusack in?Say Anything.

說到《Lover》這張專輯，稱其具有進(jìn)化性會比說其具有革命性更加合適。但無論如何，它給人的感覺更像是一種頓悟:自由而從容，不受任何概念或觀點(diǎn)的支配，它代表著Swift最自由的一面，她正享受著她為音樂軍團(tuán)贏得的一點(diǎn)自由。專輯主要是與才華橫溢的音樂界婦女之友Jack Antonoff合作完成的，其基調(diào)聽起來像是80年代的流行搖滾樂。在制作Target豪華版專輯的時候，Taylor跟Antonoff說她希望同名曲要有“夢幻復(fù)古吉他聲，而非坎普風(fēng)格，”而歌曲確實(shí)如此。（如果Carly Rae Jepsen最近真有熱單的話，留意下她最近的作品）。Taylor在“Paper Rings”中加入了“1-2-3-4”、“hey! ho!”，還加入了一些像動畫片音樂融合Eddie Money曲風(fēng)后的歡快緊湊的節(jié)奏。在與Antonoff 和 Annie Clark (也叫St. Vincent)合作譜寫的“Cruel Summer”中，她用三分鐘講述了一段簡單的虐戀，聽起來就像截取于一段對話框的只言片語。當(dāng)她唱到：“望著窗外/我在等著你在樓下等我?！焙翢o疑問地，你的腦海中會浮現(xiàn)出電影《情到深處》的John Cusack。

Swift adjusts her frame of reference as needed. She claims to be “In my feelings more than Drake” in “I Forgot That You Existed,” a pro forma, post-trop-house declaration of her “indifference” to the haters. Thankfully, that’s mainly it for the sassy, winking Swift. Instead, she mostly goes for the big moods. “False God” is as minor-key and seductive as anything by the Weeknd, with a chorus, well — I’ll just leave this here: “Religion’s on your lips / Even if it’s a false god / We’d still worship / We must just get away with it / The altar is my hips.” She zags into oblique political commentary with “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” a high school parable where she sees “high fives Between bad guys” and delivers “O! K!” interjections in her best cheerleader voice. Like?Euphoria,?the HBO teensploitation extravaganza, it’s dark, melodramatic and, against all odds, perfect.

Taylor也根據(jù)自己的需要調(diào)整了曲風(fēng)。在“I Forgot That You Existed”當(dāng)中，她唱道：“你比公鴨的歌還洗腦”——直接道出她對黑粉的“冷漠”。不過萬幸的是，這只是不羈而又婊婊的一面。相反地，Taylor將大部分精力放進(jìn)了對一些情緒波動的描述?！癋alse God”中采用了跟the Weekend歌曲中類似的撩人小調(diào)，這首歌的副歌——我直接放這兒吧：“你總是把宗教掛在嘴邊/就算明知這是一個假的神/我們還要繼續(xù)朝拜/還不如趕緊逃離這一切/我的美腿就是圣壇?！彼酶枨癕iss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince”開始涉足陰暗的政界，講述了一個高中生的寓言故事，她看到了“壞男孩之間的擊掌”，也用拉拉隊(duì)長的聲音唱出了“O!K!”。這首歌就像HBO的青春性剝削劇《亢奮》一般，黑暗而充滿戲劇性，又反對所有的不平等，堪稱完美。

There’s plenty more fodder for the Swifties, haters, and bloggers here. Leo takes a proverbial volleyball to the face on “The Man,” a usefully blunt indictment of double standards, and the dub-inflected “London Boy” counts all the ways she “fancies” her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. “Soon You’ll Get Better” was recorded with Dixie Chicks, but giving the country-radio exiles a feature isn’t the point — the song is note-perfect ballad for Swift’s mother, whose cancer returned earlier this year. Whatever there is to be read into these songs, they are for one person and one person alone: Taylor Swift. Finally.

接下來還有更多的料供霉粉、霉黑以及各種博主食用。Taylor在“The Man”中說如果她是一個男人，其他人就會像對Leonardo DiCaprio一樣對她了，這首歌是一個對于雙重標(biāo)準(zhǔn)最典型的控訴；在“London?Boy”中又唱出了她對男朋友Joe Alwyn那無可救藥的喜歡。“Soon You’ll Get Better”是一首跟Dixie Chicks合唱的合作曲，但是其帶有一點(diǎn)鄉(xiāng)村電臺的曲風(fēng)并不是重點(diǎn)——重點(diǎn)是這首歌是獻(xiàn)給今年癌癥復(fù)發(fā)了的Taylor媽媽的歌。無論我們對這些歌曲做再多的解讀，這些歌曲都只屬于一個人，僅僅是她一個人——Taylor Swift，這毋庸置疑。