搬运译Pitchfork评10年代最佳单曲第196名：John Maus: “Believer” (2011)

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）

原文链接：https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-200-best-songs-of-the-2010s/

翻译：Ryan Xiang

校对：Whitney. L

推送：Lynn Liu

Like many of his lo-fi pop contemporaries in the early ’10s, reclusive Midwesterner John Maus pushed underground music forward by looking backward—rejecting digital studio techniques in favor of old drum machines and wonky synths, excavating the dramatic excesses of ’80s stadium pop and sentimental radio jingles as though they held clues to some hard-to-pinpoint generational subconscious. But his actual relationship to such sources could be hard to read: Was Maus poking fun at music’s power to manufacture an emotional response, like when we find ourselves crying in the middle of a commercial, or celebrating its potential to offer us a fleeting moment of ecstasy, a glimpse of a world that is better than our own? Arriving at the end of 2011’s We Must Be the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves with the cathartic finality of perfectly curated exit music, this song—with its glittering harpsichord arpeggios, briskly pulsing bass, and grandiose allusions to borderless love—is the closest Maus has ever come to being a true believer. –Emilie Friedlander

与10年代早期的许多劣质流行音乐同辈一样，隐居在美国中西部的John Maus也通过复古推进地下音乐——他拒绝使用数码录音室技术，转而使用老式的鼓机和古怪的合成器，并以此来挖掘80年代体育场流行音乐和感伤的广播歌曲的夸张戏剧化，仿佛他们已经掌握了难以捉摸的下一代人潜意识的线索。但他与这些灵感的实际关系很难理解：Maus是在取笑音乐能让观众看广告而流泪的煽情力量，还是在庆祝音乐中为我们提供片刻狂欢或是帮助我们窥探美好世界的潜力？到了2011年底《We Must Be the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves（我们必须无情审视自己）》用完美的音乐来宣泄终结，这首有着闪闪发光的大键琴琶音、轻快的低音和无穷尽的情诗，标志着Maus最接近一个真正信徒的瞬间。