【搬运】【译】娱乐周刊评Justin Timberlake 2018年专辑《Man of the Woods》

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：Winnie-Hess

校正：Ryan-Chopin

75分

Justin Timberlake has built a career — several careers, really — on making it all look easy. Where other superstars take care to show at least an occasional flash of fallibility, the struggle and sweat behind the hits, he glides through every stadium tour and SNL skit with the serene gleam of a born showman. It’s brought him to a place at the top of the pyramid that few ever get to see the view from, a multihyphenate whose music and movies and Jimmy Fallon comedy bits have made him not just a brand name but a sort of falsettoed mascot for American pop culture supremacy.

贾老板在各个领域都已取得一番成就，成功得似乎轻而易举。当其他巨星小心翼翼、害怕犯错，且为了一首热榜歌曲付出艰辛的努力和汗水的时候，他却在演唱会和SNL（“周末夜现场”）上大放光彩，像是天生闪耀的娱乐家。这让他在少数人能企及的金字塔顶端占了一席之地，他的音乐、电影和与Jimmy Fallon的喜剧表演不仅让他成为了一个响亮的品牌，还是美国现今流行文化的代表人物之一。月初时，他在一分钟的小视频中透露了有关自己第五张专辑的消息，给人感觉他的又一次转型十分不易。

So when he dropped the news of his fifth solo studio album in a minute-long promotional video earlier this month, the vision it presented felt like a hard swerve toward something new: Gazing soulfully from a series of slow-pan landscapes (rural roadways, galloping horses, sun spilling through corn stalks), Timberlake, in his Navajo blankets and craggy beard, appeared to be Bon Iver-ing himself right before our eyes. Forget everything you thought you knew, the clip seemed to say, about the Tiger Beat pinup of *NSYNC or the slick lothario SexyBacking in a Gucci suit; here’s the real Tennessee kid, a rustic, contemplative Man of the Woods.

贾老板披着他纳瓦霍毛毯，留着毛糙的胡子，深情凝视着一系列冷清和缓的景象（乡村小道、飞驰的马、阳光从玉米秆透出），我们似乎在他身上看到了Bon Iver的影子。这段视频似乎是在让我们忘记我们自以为知道关于他曾经的一切——《Tiger Beat》上超级男孩（*NSYNC）的海报亦或是穿着Gucci西装的社会小青年。如今这呈现出来的才是真正的田纳西州的孩子，一个普普通通的人。

Then came the lead single, “Filthy,” and it was…not woodsy. Over squelched synths and a panting electro-boogie beat, he crooned about swagger and 6 a.m. ragers and asked (rhetorically? hopefully), “Whatcha gonna do with all that meat?” The internet, as it does, took note of the dissonance; was New Justin actually just Old Justin, with a thin whiff of campfire smoke? After all, nearly every track was co-credited to longtime collaborators Timbaland, Danja, and the Neptunes, whose work has always fallen firmly in his sweet spot: ergonomic R&B with one foot in wriggling retro funk and one in the future.

  关于主打歌“Filthy”，它的风格好像和上述描述有点不搭。在咯吱咯吱的合成器和令人气喘的电摇节拍中，他大摇大摆地唱歌，像是在清晨六点就开始作乐，丝毫不夸张地问着：你想怎么面对这些肉体呢？而网民们也注意到了这里有带点情色意味的歌词。转型后的贾老板是否只是带着一些烟火气的原配贾老板呢？毕竟，几乎每首歌曲都是由长期合作的Timbaland, Danja, 和the Neptunes联手打造的，他们的作品一直坚定在他们最擅长的位置：一只脚在复古摇滚中，一只脚踏进未来来探索新音乐。

Whatever all the sheepskin and heritage talk promised — a manifesto on manhood, marriage, and intimacy; a megastar stripped back to his roots — isn’t really what Woods delivers. Instead it’s a grab bag of styles and sonic mood boards: “Supplies,” a skittering, country-grammared come-on, uses survivalism as a pickup line (if you need a generator, girl, just ask); the guitar-fuzzed strut “Sauce” wouldn’t feel wrong on a ’90s Lenny Kravitz B side; “Montana” sounds less like a day on the ranch than a night at the Roxbury, or at least the after-party. He finds worthy counterparts on the dreamy Alicia Keys duet “Morning Light” and scruffy back-porch rambler “Say Something,” with Nashville outlaw Chris Stapleton. But several cameos from his actress wife Jessica Biel and their toddler son mostly serve to reinforce his domestic bliss; milk for breakfast and champagne in the afternoon, no spilled Lemonade. Even the tender “Flannel” feels less confessional than laid-bare ballads like 2006’s “LoveStoned/I Think She Knows” or 2013’s “Mirrors.” What’s strangest, maybe, is that almost nothing on Woods nods to the evolution of pop music in the five years since he last released a record. Once an artist who reshaped the contours of the Hot 100, Timberlake now seems content to ride out his own scenic route, as blithe and unknowable as he’s ever been. B

不管一切古老的故事和传说都流传下了什么——一份关于男子气概、婚姻和亲密关系的宣言，或是一位巨星褪去光环回归了初心——这都不是《Man of the Woods》所要表达的。相反，它只是风格和音效的“杂烩”：

“Supplies”用一种轻巧的乡村风格做诱饵，用生存主义作为搭讪的前提（如果你需要一个能生育的人，一个女孩儿，尽管要就可以了，她们就像是你的“Supplies”供给品一样）。

吉他声模糊不清的“Sauce”像是更适合90年代的Lenny Kravitz。“Montana”听起来不像是在大牧场的一天，反倒是像在罗克斯伯里的一晚，也可能是在余兴派对呢。

他在与Alicia Keys合作的“Morning Light”和纳什维尔的村夫Chris Stapleton“Say Something”中找到了适合自己的音乐。

而他的演员妻子Jessica Biel和他们蹒跚学步的儿子出现在专辑中，主要是为了增强他的家庭幸福感，一副“早餐喝牛奶，下午喝香槟，柠檬水也不错”的家庭场景。

即使是柔和的“Flannel”也不像2006年发行的“LoveStoned/I Think She Knows”和2013年发行的“Mirrors”那样意义明确的抒情曲一样，明显缺乏忏悔意味。

或许最奇怪的是，自他上次发布唱片的五年时间以来，这张专辑几乎没有能与当今流行音乐发展相媲美的东西。作为曾经在“Hot 100”榜上风生水起的艺人，贾老板现在似乎满足于走属于自己风格的路线，无忧无虑，我们永远猜不透。