【搬运】【译】Pitchfork评Niall Horan 2020年专辑《Heartbreak Weather》
搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）
翻译：Tyler Smith
审译：Joonly EC
排版：Ryan-Chopin
For his catchy but charmless second solo album, the pop singer offers a loose-concept record that explores every angle of a breakup through the most pitiful of conversation starters: the weather.
在Niall Horan抓耳但缺乏魅力的第二张个人专辑中，他尝试从最微小的对话开头，以天气讨论出发，探索分手的各个角度，交出了一张概念松散的唱片。
In 2010, a wee Niall Horan decided to test his vocal prowess by auditioning for the British singing competition The X Factor. After performing a neutered rendition of Ne-Yo’s “So Sick,” the 16-year-old Irishman was met with skepticism from guest judge Katy Perry, who sagely warned, “Likeableness is not gonna sell records.” Nevertheless, she let him advance and Horan was placed in the group One Direction alongside four other baby-faced fellows. As 1D became the biggest pop group in the world, it was apparent that likability (alongside teenage sex appeal, many genuinely good bops, and a rapidly obsessive fanbase) actually sells a lot of records.
2010年，年轻的 Niall Horan决定参加英国歌唱比赛《X Factor》的试镜，以证明自己的歌唱能力。这位16岁的爱尔兰人在表演了一段Ne-Yo的“So Sick”后，遭到了评委Katy Perry的质疑，她理智地警告说，“只是可爱是卖不出唱片的”。然而，她还是让他晋级了，Horan和其他四个娃娃脸的家伙一起被安排在了组合One Direction（1D）中。随着1D成为当时世界上最成功的流行乐队，很明显，可爱（以及十几岁的性感，他们有许多确实很出彩的音乐和一个发展迅速的死忠粉丝群）也确实卖出了很多唱片。
After One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in 2015, Horan spun his role as the band’s guitar-playing Nice Guy into a pleasant-enough solo career. Three years after his folk-pop debut, Flicker, Horan’s biggest challenge as an artist is to harness his ordinariness into being an exceptional everyman à la Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi. So for his second record, the golf-loving, Eagles-obsessed wannabe boomer turned to a loose-concept album that explores every angle of a breakup through the most pitiful of conversation starters: the weather. Parting clouds, rising suns, cinematic rainstorms, Heartbreak Weather has everything, except soul.
2015年，在1D宣布无限期解散后，Horan从乐队的吉他演奏好手跳脱，开启了自己愉快的单飞生涯。在Horan的民谣流行专辑《Flicker》首次亮相三年后，作为一名艺术家，他最大的挑战是如何利用自己平凡的一面，成为一名杰出的普通人——像Ed Sheeran和Lewis Capaldi那样。因此，在于他的第二张唱片中，一个热爱高尔夫、并痴迷老鹰乐队的老家伙借助于一张概念松散专辑，通过最具微笑的天气对话开始，探索分手的每个角度。离别的云彩，冉冉升起的太阳，电影场景般的暴风雨，心碎的天气，除了灵魂，什么都有。
It’s quite a let down from the promise of Heartbreak Weather’s lead single, “Nice to Meet Ya.” Borrowing some strained swagger from former bandmate Liam Payne, Horan entices an elusive would-be lover over a dancey British alt-rock vibe. While the track employs some heavy-handed horniness—“I’m gonna take you somewhere warm, you know J’adore la mer,” Horan purrs because French makes everything sexier, oui?—it’s an easy guilty pleasure that is as charming as it is uncool. Unfortunately, the rest of the record never recaptures this little spark.
与专辑的首发单曲“Nice to Meet Ya”给人带来的期待度相比，整张专辑令人失望。学着前队友Liam Payne不自在的摇摆，Horan在英式另类摇滚的律动中邀请一个神秘的未来情人共舞。虽然这首单曲有着一些欲望过盛的感觉，Horan唱到：“I’m gonna take you somewhere warm, you know J’adore la mer（我要带你去一个温暖的地方，你知道我喜欢大海）”因为法语让一切都更性感，是吗？（这句歌词中出现了法语）这是一种简单又有些罪恶感的快乐，不酷但却吸引人。不幸的是，专辑里剩下的单曲再也没有重现过这一点点火花。
On the title track, Horan posits that love has a magical, transformational power that can shift the cosmos and make lonely boys feel complete. He follows this disclosure with “Black and White,” a soaring declaration of eternal devotion. “I promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life,” Horan belts, in between weepy visions of their wedding day and homely golden years. It’s difficult to feel moved by the stakes of these grandiose statements because their meanings are so cliché, and not in the way that feels refreshingly familiar.
在专辑同名曲中，Horan假设爱情有一种神奇的转化力量，可以改变宇宙，让孤独的男孩感到完整。“Black and White”中仍坚持这一假设，这是一个关于不朽之爱的高亢宣言。“I promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life.（我保证，我会爱你一辈子），”Horan在婚礼之日和金婚后的家常岁月场景之间飞奔。这些宏大的场景所展现的大爱很难打动人，因为它们的含义太老套了，不是让人耳目一新的方式。
After these blasts of sunshine, storm clouds gather. Across the rest of Heartbreak Weather, Horan is stuck in two mindsets: bereft or coltish, either haunted by the memory of a lover, or desperately trying to scrub her away. There’s no explanation for why the relationship worthy of celestial exaltation dissipates other than that the music starts to move from generic anthems into a confusing mix of bleeding-heart ballads and Fleetwood Mac-indebted pop-rock. As on Flicker, Horan is a co-writer on every song and he is joined by Teddy Geiger, Tobias Jesso Jr., Greg Kurstin, Scott Harris, and 1D regular Julian Bunetta. Horan’s songwriting seemingly works only in unwavering extremes. When he’s blue, like on the painfully maudlin “Dear Patience” or the piano-driven breakup ballad “Put a Little Love on Me,” it’s as if the sky is falling. When he’s hurt by a lover, as on “Bend the Rules” he is the picture of gentlemanly restraint. “I pour myself a glass, it won’t be the last/Just our medicine for now,” he forlornly rumbles. (Confusingly, Horan has referred to this song as his “Streets of Philadelphia” moment, a song written in response to the AIDS epidemic.) When he’s frisky, as in say, “Small Talk,” he invokes feral wolves and roaring flames. Over and over again, he goes through the motions without ever really looking inward.
在这充沛的阳光下，竟依旧乌云密布。在其他歌曲里，Horan陷入了两种心态：迷失或冷漠，要么被关于爱人的记忆所困扰，要么拼命想把她从回忆中赶走。除了音乐开始从普通的赞歌转变为令人摸不着头脑的心碎情歌和Fleetwood Mac式流行摇滚的结合，没有任何理由可以解释为什么神仙眷侣般的关系也会破裂。和《Flicker》一样，Horan参与了每首歌的创作，Teddy Geiger, Tobias Jesso Jr., Greg Kurstin, Scott Harris以及 1D 常客 Julian Bunetta也加入了创作的行列。Horan的歌曲创作似乎一直非常极端。当他忧伤时，比如在令人悲伤的“Dear Patience”或钢琴分手民谣“Put a Little Love on Me”中，仿佛天空都塌下来了。当他受到情人的伤害时，比如在“Bend the Rules”中那样，他绅士般地克制自己的情绪。“I pour myself a glass, it won’t be the last/Just our medicine for now.（我给自己倒了一杯，这不会是最后一杯/只是我俩现在的解药），”他凄凉地低吟着。（令人困惑的是，Horan把这首歌称为属于他的“费城的街道”，这本是一首为应对艾滋病流行而写的歌。）当他精神抖擞时，就像在“Small Talk”里，他会召唤野狼和熊熊烈火。他一次又一次地点题，但从来没有真正地往深处挖掘。
In an interview with apple Music, Horan said that despite his intention to cover a variety of perspectives, the songs will “probably still sound selfish.” It’s not exactly that Heartbreak Weather is selfish—Horan sounds too adrift for true narcissism—but it’s superficial. The women in his songs are painfully one-dimensional. Rather than defining them at all, Horan and his songwriters reduce them into faceless placeholders tasked with helping the singer move on. On the boogie-down track “New Angel,” a forsaken Horan craves a distraction from his lovesick psyche. “I need a new angel/A touch of someone else to save me from myself,” he croons, “....I’m hoping you get her out of my mind.” Horan repeatedly writes himself into similar emotional pickles, finding solace in the arms of a stranger while fixated with someone else. It’s a valid post-breakup experience, but it simultaneously limits the already narrow role women have on the record.
Horan在接受苹果音乐的采访时说，尽管他打算涵盖各种角度，但这些歌曲“可能听起来仍然很私人化”。这并不完全是因为《Heartbreak Weather》太私人化，Horan听起来并不自恋，但《Heartbreak Weather》是肤浅的。他歌里的女人的痛苦是一维的。Horan和他的词曲作者没有对它们下定义，而是把它们简化成一个不知名的占位符，任务是帮助歌手继续前进。在低音布鲁斯单曲“New Angel”中，被抛弃的Horan渴望从他那患相思病的心灵中解脱出来。“I need a new angel/A touch of someone else to save me from myself.（我需要一个新的天使/一个其他人的触摸来拯救我自己）”他低声说道，“....I’m hoping you get her out of my mind.（.……我希望你能让她从我的脑海中消失。）”Horan不断地把自己写进类似的情感纠葛中，在一个陌生人的怀里寻找慰藉，同时眼神又锁定其他人。这是一次有效的分手后的经历，但同时也限制了女性在专辑中本已狭窄的角色。
After all the sentimental rigamarole, it’s tough to come away from Heartbreak Weather feeling any closer to Horan. He spends too much of the record bouncing between sounds and songwriting concepts to feel distinct. But on the record’s closer, the acoustic ballad “Still,” Horan sounds like he genuinely wants, or even needs an emotional reckoning. It’s the realest, rawest moment on the record and a small bit of proof that Horan has the potential to make it on his own.
听完《Heartbreak Weather》，在经历了所有多愁善感的碎碎念之后，仍然让人感到与Horan有距离感。他花了太多的时间在声音和独特的歌曲创作概念之间来回跳跃。但最近，在不插电版的“Still”中，Horan听起来是真心想要，甚至急需一个情感上的仔细考量。这是专辑有史以来最真实、最原始的时刻，也是Horan能独挑大梁的一个小小证明。
