【搬运】【译】滚石Rolling Stone评Rihanna 2016年专辑《ANTI》（反了）
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：JenniferC
审译：Emma.Z
排版：SpencerC
For much of 2015, repeated delays and a lack of solid information started to make Rihanna’s Anti feel like pop’s mythical creature. Now that we know it’s real, we can hear the singer’s eighth LP for what it is: a sprawling masterpiece of psychedelic soul that’s far more straightforward than its tangled rollout. The three full years since 2012’s Unapologetic – the longest break Between releases in Rihanna’s career – turned out to be exactly what she needed to make a rich full-length statement. After more than a decade as a superstar of the singles chart, Rihanna has become an album artist.
2015整整一年，专辑的发行不断推迟，小道消息满天飞，Rihanna的《Anti》似乎成为了流行音乐界的一个谜。好在现在专辑真真切切地发行了，我们也听到了Rihanna的第八张LP：虽然不同歌曲被捆绑在一张专辑里，但其背后的思想灵魂却充斥着嗑药美学的意味，肆意游走，真诚坦率，堪称杰作。自2012发行《Unapologetic（毫无歉意）》之后的整整三年，是Rihanna职业生涯中发行专辑间隔时间最长的一次。而事实证明，这三年蛰伏恰到好处。十多年来，蕾哈娜一直是单曲榜上的超级明星，如今她的专辑同样可以征服听众。
Anti is first and foremost an experience built on vibes. Where previous LPs were built around clear peaks, here the songs fit together into a fluid landscape of seamless transitions – check the flow on the excellent mid-album run of after-hours joints from “Desperado” to “Woo” to “Needed Me.” Every song sounds like our collective fantasy of Rihanna: a carefree island girl lounging in a cloud of smoke, asserting a brand of independence that’s wholly her own. On “James Joint,” she assures us that she’d “rather be/Smoking weed/Whenever we breathe/Every time you kiss me” in her most dulcet tones. “You been rollin’ around/Shit, I’m rollin’ up,” she asserts on the biting kiss-off track “Needed Me.” Clearly, the stoned party goddess we’ve seen on Instagram and Snapchat is pretty close to the real Rihanna.
《Anti》是Rihanna第一张用“氛围”贯穿的专辑。她之前的专辑都有明确的高潮，其他歌曲围绕高潮展开，但这张专辑中,不同歌曲自然融合、无缝衔接，形成一道流畅优美的风景。专辑中间的歌曲和前面的风格剥离开来，无论是“Desperado（亡命之徒）”，“Woo（呼）”还是“Needed Me（需要我）”，都符合我们想象中Rihanna的形象：一个海岛女孩，懒洋洋地躺在烟雾之中，向世人宣扬着自己独立的主张。在“James Joint（詹姆士的窝点）”中，她吟唱道：“rather be/Smoking weed/Whenever we breathe/Every time you kiss me（每当呼吸/每当你亲吻我/我宁愿/抽大麻）”而在戛然而止的歌曲“Needed Me（需要我）”中，她唱道：“You been rollin’ around/Shit, I’m rollin’ up（你无休止地缠着我/而我只是冷漠相对）”。或许，那个在Instagram和Snapchat上喝的酩酊大醉的派对女王才是真正的Rihanna。
Anti‘s beats are more muted than the flashier productions of her past work, which leaves room for the album’s biggest revelation: Rihanna’s show-stopping vocal performances. One year ago, on one-off single “FourFiveSeconds,” she belted in a raw, raspy tone that expressed levels of soul the previous decade of her career had only hinted at. Here, she follows through on that promise, singing powerfully and with a deeper emotional density than she’s revealed before. On the bluesy late-album highlight “Higher,” when she sings “This whiskey got me feelin’ pretty” over a dusty strings sample from producer No ID, she could be crooning in a smoky post-war jazz club.
和过去广为流传的“酒吧嗨曲”相比，《Anti》的节奏更静，把更多的空间留给了这张专辑最有意义的部分——抛开表演成分的Rihanna最纯净的演唱。一年前，在单曲“FourFiveSeconds（四五秒）”中，她用质朴、尖锐的声音吟唱，表达了她在过去十年职业生涯中的心路历程。而在这张专辑中，她延续了“FourFiveSeconds”所表达的内容，和以往相比，她的演唱更有力、情感更浓厚。在专辑末尾布鲁斯风格的“Higher(更高）”中，Rihanna伴着NoID制作的弦乐唱道：“This whiskey got me feelin’ pretty（威士忌喝得我有些飘飘然）”，此时的她就仿佛置身二战后烟雾缭绕的爵士俱乐部。
Rihanna serves up a one-two punch of left-field choices in the album’s second half, giving doo-wop a modern spin with ease on “Love on the Brain” and finding a new hypnotic pull in a Tame Impala song on “Same Ol’ Mistakes,” Anti‘s most shocking track. It’s a faithful take on Australian psych-pop mastermind Kevin Parker’s 2015 tune, but Rihanna’s mellow vocals make it worlds more inviting and compelling.
At her core, though, she’s still a hitmaker. Single “Work” isn’t even her best collaboration with Drake – that would be 2011’s expansive house ballad Take Care” – but it’s an impeccably catchy glide across a subtle, syrupy dancehall beat. The sexy, deep synth-pop of “Desperado,” meanwhile, could easily make it a club hit by summer; and Rih has her Purple Rain moment on the shimmering, funky “Kiss It Better,” which serves as the album’s most direct pop moment by far.
在专辑的第二章，Rihanna给我们接二连三地带来了许多奇思妙想——在“Love on the Brain（陷入爱海）”中改良嘟沃普和声，使其更加现代也更加惬意；在专辑的华彩部分“Same Ol’ Mistakes（相同的错误）”中，她使得这首Tame Impala乐队的歌曲更加迷人。和澳大利亚迷幻流行乐领军人Kevin Parker（Tame Impala乐队成员）2015年演唱的歌曲相比，Rihanna的版本是对前人忠实的致敬和演绎，但她的声音更醇厚，让这首歌扣人心弦。实际上，Rihanna仍旧是一个热门单曲制造机。《Anti》中的“Work（工作）”其实还不是她和Drake最好的合作——那该是2011年那首热情洋溢、颇具民谣特色的“Take Care(保重）”，不过“Work”也不错，在微妙变化、甜美动人的舞厅节奏背后，我们还能感受到无可挑剔的滑音。而性感深沉的合成乐“Desperado（亡命之徒）”，则很可能成为这个夏日夜店中的动感嗨曲。在专辑最明显的流行乐“Kiss It Better（好好吻我）”的强劲节奏中，Rihanna也迎来了她仿佛Purple Rain（紫雨）（美国摇滚歌手Prince曾获奥斯卡和格莱美奖的知名歌曲）般的高光时刻。
Ultimately, Anti‘s sound is more than just another new costume for a singer who’s dabbled in everything from flirty teen-pop to aggressive trap over the last decade-plus. This is an album that forces us to question the boxes we’ve placed Rihanna in all along. Is she queen of the clubs or a break-up balladeer? Are her pop instincts sharper than her hip-hop ones? The answer, as provided here, is all of the above and more. After years as a singer largely defined by her production, it finally feels like Rihanna is in charge of her own sound, remaking pop on her own terms. As she puts it bluntly on the glitchy groove “Consideration,” which opens the LP: “I got to do things my own way, darling.”
归根结底，对于过去十几年里在青少年流行乐和动感乐曲都有所涉猎的Rihanna来说,《Anti》绝不只是歌手给自己换上另一种风格那么简单。它让我们思考：我们过去对Rihanna的定位是否正确？她是夜店女王，还是分手民谣歌手？她的气质和天赋更适合流行乐，还是嘻哈？答案就在专辑里，也在别处。曾经，Rihanna要仰赖自己的作品才能得到“歌者”的名号，但现在她有了主动权，可以自己掌控自己的声线，重新定义“流行乐”。就像专辑的打头曲“Consideration（体谅）”中唱的那样，“I got to do things my own way, darling.（亲爱的，我得按自己的方式做事）”。
