【搬运】【译】Spin杂志评Kacey Musgraves专辑《Golden Hour》

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：Nina Wang

校正：Ryan-Chopin

The title track of Pageant Material, Kacey Musgraves’ last album, is among her subtler wordplays. “I ain’t pageant material,” she sings: bad with high heels, iffy on swimsuit competitions. But it’s also a nod to the fact that women in country tend to produce pageant material, as in repertoire; conservative songs for big voices that might be sung, alongside “Broken Wing” maybe, by Junior Misses across the heartland.

Kacey Musgraves在上张专辑《Pageant Material（选美小姐）》的主打歌中玩起了文字游戏。“I ain’t pageant material（我不是选美小姐的料）”歌词说：踩高跟穿泳衣走台步，我可做不来。的确，就像这首歌唱的那样，美国乡村盛产选美小姐，她们把传统乡村音乐（比如“Broken Wing（折翼）”）唱遍中心地带。

That’s never quite been Kacey, who since acerbic debut single “Merry Go Round” has occupied an uneasy place in the country industry. She’s a woman in a genre where radio consultant Keith Hill drew criticism in 2015 for advising programmers that “if you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out.” She doesn’t quite fit the standard archetypes for women in country: not a Southern belle like countless ingenues, not a brash spitfire like Miranda Lambert, not a maternal elder like Dolly or Reba. And she sings about such un-conservative topics as gay rights and marijuana—topics that are not without recent precedent, or even precedent decades ago, but like most of the world, the Nashville industry finds such outspokenness more pardonable in men.

这样的Kacey有点反常。凭借一首尖酸刻薄的处女作单曲“Merry Go Round（旋转木马）”，Kacey在乡村音乐界占据一席之地，但也引起了争议。2015年，广播制作顾问Keith Hill曾建议广播制作方“想提高收听率，就别放女歌手的歌。”典型的乡村女孩，要么天真无邪，要么像Miranda Lambert那样急性子，要么像Dolly 或Reba有仁慈温和的长者风范，但Kacey一点都没中。她唱同志权利，唱大麻，唱最新鲜的话题，几十年前的事她理都不理。可纳什维尔与其他地方也没什么两样，比起男性，女性的直言不讳更不受待见。

Where Same Trailer, Different Park and Pageant Material were largely written with Luke Laird and Shane McAnally, with hundreds of country credits between them, Golden Hour is written with Daniel Tashian, of alt-country group Silver Seas, and Ian Fitchuk. The difference is palpable from track one. Kin in melody and wistfulness (and title) to the Civil Wars-penned “Slow Disco” from St. Vincent’s last album, “Slow Burn” is essentially Musgraves’ re-introduction: incorporating lines from one of her earliest tracks, “Burn One With John Prine” (“grandma cried when I pierced my nose”). The chorus drifts along quietly, unlike much of country radio’s weapons-grade Southern rock choruses; the lyrics are plainspoken, with none of the neat packaging (“tying everything up in a bow,” she called it) of her old work. Where she once had a compelling songwriting portfolio, here she has a compelling mood.

《Same Trailer, Different Park（同一辆拖车，不同的停车场）》和《Pageant Material》的歌曲多数是与Luke Laird和Shane McAnally合作完成，而《Golden Hour》则携手Ian Fitchuk和另类乡村组合Silver Seas的Daniel Tashian。这一变化在专辑的第一首歌中就显而易见。“Slow Burn（逐渐浓烈）”与St. Vincent上张专辑中映射内战的“Slow Disco（慢速迪斯科）”一样，旋律舒缓，歌词惆怅。这首歌是她早期的单曲“Burn One With John Prine（和John Prine一起燃烧）”的续曲，是Musgraves 对自己的再次诠释。（“grandma cried when I pierced my nose”（看到我打鼻环，祖母哭得泣不成声））多数乡村音乐的副歌喜欢用南方的爆炸式摇滚，而“Slow Burn”的副歌缓慢，歌词直言不讳，也没有她以往编曲的小心机（她管这叫“把所用东西系成一个蝴蝶结”）。以往的歌展示了她高水准的编曲能力，而这一首则饱含她耐人寻味的内心独白。

That mood’s best described as “content.” Musgraves just got married, which accounts for the uptick in love songs. But there’s a low-key contentedness to everything else, too, less akin to rootsy country than bedroom indie-pop. Musgraves’ voice, high and earnest, is reminiscent of folkies like Suzanne Vega or Sheryl Crow (at whose house Golden Hour was recorded). It’s not a belting voice, but it’s a remarkable instrument, capable of imbuing with winsome empathy songs like “Lonely Weekend” and “Happy & Sad” that might otherwise be tweenish sap. Even the druggy tracks approach Disney levels of earnestness: “Mother,” perhaps the most wholesome track ever written on LSD, and the ethereal, vocoded “Oh, What a World,” which is like a rewrite of “What a Wonderful World” by someone who prefers a different sort of trees of green.

新婚的Kacey，毫无疑问，内心是满足的。因而这张专辑的爱情单曲也稍多于以往。但她的音乐里也不妨有对其他事物的一丝满足，比起正统乡村音乐，她仍偏向独立摇滚的卧室流行。Musgraves声线高而纯净，让人不由想起Suzanne Vega或Sheryl Crow（《Golden Hour》的录音在Sheryl Crow家里完成）。这种声线没有充沛力量但也能过耳不忘。像“Lonely Weekend（孤独周末）”和“Happy & Sad（开心与悲伤）”，充满少女感的同时又能引起你的共鸣，要是用喊叫唱法恐怕会变成小孩的嚷嚷叫。有趣的是，她的歌就算沾了毒品，其真挚程度也照样能赶上迪士尼的水准：“Mother（妈妈）”可以说是一个人在吸LSD（麦角二乙酰胺，一种半人工致幻剂）时所能创作的最健康的歌；空灵的“Oh, What a World（哦多么美好的世界）”就像 “What a Wonderful World（多么美好的世界）”的改版，只不过把绿树换成了其他的东西。

The buzziest track on Golden Hour is undoubtedly “High Horse,” which gallops along with a Shania twain conceit and lite disco licks that sound more like pop-radio Pharrell than what one might think of as country. Then again, in 2016, Pharrell cut a record with Musgraves’s current tour mates Little Big Town. And for a couple of years now, middle-of-the-road country music has quietly come to sound a lot like radio pop circa the ‘90s, the kind that perhaps wouldn’t be classified as country if released then. Pick a country single off the charts; it’s as likely to sound like Southern rock as Fleetwood Mac or Lilith Fair or even Hanson. The genre’s being blurred from the other direction as well—recording a country-adjacent album is the go-to of late for pop stars wanting to rebrand as “authentic,” from Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus’s Joanne and Younger Now to Kesha’s Rainbow (“Godzilla” and “Spaceship” could be alternate-universe Musgraves tracks).

《Golden Hour》里最潮的一首歌当属“High Horse（盛气凌人）”。骏马飞驰带着Shania twain的狂妄，简版迪斯科风格与乡村不怎么沾边，反倒会给你在听Pharrell的流行乐电台乐的错觉。不仅如此，2016年Pharrell还与Musgraves现在的巡演搭档Little Big Town有过合作。最近几年，质朴的乡村音乐正向90年代的电台流行乐靠近，不过这张专辑要是放在当时发布可绝谈不上乡村。随便挑一首当下热门的乡村单曲，多半都听起来像当年Fleetwood Mac，Lilith Fair或even Hanson的南方摇滚。乡村音乐与其他流派的界限也越来越模糊――录一张乡村风格的专辑成了流行歌手们证明自己“真格”的关键，比如Lady Gaga的“Joanne（乔安娜）”和Miley Cyrus的“Younger Now（青春进行时）”。（可以说，“Godzilla（哥斯拉）”和“Spaceship（飞船）”走的基本上是Musgraves的风格）。

Little surprise, then, that Golden Hour falters where it’s closest to mainstream country. “Space Cowboy” is the sort of track where you suspect the writers came up with the titular concept first (“you can have your space, cowboy”) then paired it with a stock arrangement. But then there’s something like “Velvet Elvis,” co-written with Nashville longtimer Natalie Hemby. It’s a chameleon of a song, and it’s easy to imagine it sung brash, by a Miranda Lambert or Kellie Pickler type. Musgraves’s version is more understated, from its floaty “Every Breath You Take” riff to her near-deadpan vocal. “All I ever wanted was something classic,” she sings, echoing a diss in “High Horse,” whose subject is “classic in the wrong way.” If the right way’s a hunk of velvet kitsch, Musgraves sings, what’s the problem? And if the right way for Musgraves’s music is low-key folk, what’s the problem? It’s not classicist, but perhaps it might be classic.

不出所料，《Golden Hour》徘徊在主流乡村音乐的边缘。听听“Space Cowboy（太空牛仔）”，你八成会怀疑这首歌和歌名是作者的随机组合（“you can have your space, cowboy（野男孩，你可以有自己的空间）”）。紧接着画风一转，“Velvet Elvis（猫王画像）”。这首歌由Musgraves和纳什维尔的Natalie Hemby共同制作，看名字你可能觉得它走Miranda Lambert或 Kellie Pickler的路线，但Musgraves的版本更简单含蓄，情感寡淡，一句轻盈的“Every Breath You Take（你的每一次呼吸）”不断重复。“All I ever wanted was something classic（我要的是不朽的经典）”，她在“High Horse”里呼应黑子们：“classic in the wrong way（你的经典跑偏了）”。Musgraves唱到：肌肉男喜欢天鹅绒，那又怎样？既然如此，Musgraves唱软调民谣那又怎样？《Golden Hour》不学经典，但或成经典。