【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 Madonna 2019年回归单曲《Medellín》

翻译：Nomanlandever

It should come as a surprise to precisely no one that Madonna rides the Latin pop wave for her first single in four years. From “La Isla Bonita” to Evita, Madonna’s occasional flirtation with Latin America over the years has yielded some career highlights. That, combined with the fact that Madge practically invented the now-common pop-star move of vampiring all that is young and hot from album to album, leads us down to Medellín, Colombia. The reggaeton singer Maluma guides the way, carrying the sultry, dembow-tinged song with his whispered Spanish responses to his duet partner’s eerily still verses. On a track that opens with Madonna counting off a cha-cha-chá like she’s in an ASMR video, Maluma stands out, via actual singing, as the heart and soul really selling this fever dream of young love. The chorus pops off into a joyous celebration because of him.

没人会对Madonna四年来的首支单曲迎合拉丁潮流这件事感到惊讶。从 “La Isla Bonita” 到Evita，Madonna多年来偶尔一时兴起做的拉丁风歌曲，成就了她事业的一些高光时刻。这包含了一些事实，就是Madge（英国八卦小报常以此称呼代指麦当娜）每张专辑都很熟练地邀请一些乐坛红极一时的新人，之后榨干他们所有的“精华”，一路到今天哥伦比亚的《Medellín》城。雷鬼歌手Maluma为我们领路，他唱着这首激发人性欲，Dewbow（一首雷鬼歌曲）味的歌，低声用西班牙语回应他的合唱搭档诡异寂静的歌词。在歌曲开头，Madonna像是在拍摄ASMR视频般数着cha-cha-chá。Maluma通过真实的歌声在歌曲里脱颖而出，如同全心全意地推销着满是年轻爱情的狂热梦想。因为他，歌曲副歌部分突然扭转为一场充满欢声笑语的庆祝典礼。

“Medellín” may end up being a bigger moment for Maluma than Madonna, but as far as the pop icon’s semi-recent cool-hunting exploits go, the song sits closer to the top of the heap than the bottom. It is more sonically restrained than her EDM phase, leaving room in the production for tactile details that mostly work (though the echo and Auto-Tune on her vocals is a bit much). Madonna has struggled at times in her late career to find a balance between campy bangers and more mature balladry; “Medellín” is something of a sexy, stylish middle ground. Of course, she couldn’t let a whole song this decade go by without at least one cringe-y moment. “We built a cartel just for love,” she declares, turning the titular city’s violent drug trafficking history into lyrical myopia.

就《Medellín》整首歌而言，Maluma可能比Madonna表现得更为突出。但就这位流行偶像最近的酷炫探索之旅而言，这首歌更接近杂乱堆砌的顶部而不是底部。与她的EDM阶段相比，这一阶段她在声音上更加克制，为制作上可接触到的大量细节腾出发挥空间，这多数都奏效了（尽管回声和她Auto-tune的声音有些过度处理）。在她事业后期阶段，Madonna有时会在火爆热单和更为成熟的民谣方面上挣扎犹豫；《Medellín》是种处于性感、时髦的中间地带。当然，她不可能让交替两个十年的单曲，没有出现一个令人毛骨悚然的地方，“We built a cartel just for love,”她宣称，将这个城市名义上的暴力毒品贩运历史掩盖为抒情诗般的短视。