【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评Charli XCX 2019年专辑《Charli》

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：Ryan-Chopin/Whitney.L

审译：Lynn Liu

排版：SpencerC

Long before she had firsthand experience with pop music’s star-making assembly line, songwriting camps, and royalty splits, 14-year-old Charli XCX thought that people made music because they were brainwashed by robots. “Who writes the songs/The machines do,” she sings with bug-eyed terror on her unreleased 2008 debut, 14. The lyrics are a little ridiculous, but Charli wasn’t exactly wrong in the assumption that there are complex mechanisms lurking behind most chart-topping songs. She witnessed them in the 2010s, after she signed to a major label and began penning hits for Icona Pop and Iggy Azalea, content to give her most straightforward pop songs to others. On her own albums, whether the gothic True Romance, the punky Sucker, or the avant-garde Pop 2, she subverted mainstream pop conventions, projecting the image of a rave-happy club kid. Always at Charli’s core was the contradiction of loving pop music, yet needing to rebel against the pop machine.

在流行音乐产业的造星流水线、歌曲创作训练营和版税分割等出现之前很久，当然，14岁的Charli XCX也还未经历这些，但当时她就已经认为人们创作音乐是因为被机器人洗脑了。“谁写的歌/机器人写的，”仿佛她瞪着眼珠子，一股骇人样唱着，这首歌来自她在2008年未发行的首张专辑。这首歌的歌词有点可笑，当时Charli认为：大多数排行榜冠军歌曲背后都隐藏着复杂的机械痕迹，但在这一点上她不是完全错的。她后来签约一家大唱片公司，并在2010年代见证了她以前以为的这一切。她为Icona Pop和Iggy Azalea创作出了热门歌曲，能把她最直白的流行歌曲带给别人也令她十分满足。在她自己的专辑中，无论是哥特式的《True Romance》，朋克风的《Sucker》，还是前卫的《Pop 2》，她都颠覆了主流流行音乐的常态，展现了一个疯狂快乐的俱乐部孩子的形象。Charli始终是忠爱着流行音乐，但又内心矛盾，想要抹去流行乐的机械痕迹。

Her third studio album, Charli, invites back many of Pop 2’s contributors, as if hoping to recapture its predecessor’s magic. But the record feels conflicted about its intentions. Take Lizzo-featuring “Blame It On Your Love,” a reworking of Pop 2’s transcendent “Track 10” that loses its impact by trading dial-up screeches for a widely appealing, Stargate-produced EDM drop and a dembow-inflected groove. This and the frivolous yet fun chart-pop song “1999” (featuring Troye Sivan) don’t jell with the rest of Charli’s warped club tracks and intimate ballads. Like many self-titled albums, it’s a reflection of the artist: in Charli’s case, one who wants to veer down experimental, transgressive, and queer pathways but constantly contemplates what it would be like to fully enter the mainstream.

她的第三张录音室专辑《Charli》邀请了许多《Pop 2》时期的合作者，似乎是希望重现前一张专辑的魔力，但这张唱片给人的感觉恰恰相反。以与Lizzo合作的“Blame It On Your Love”为例，这是在尝试着对《Pop 2》中卓越的“Track 10”再造，相比后者的那种引人注目的“Stargate”式EDM节奏和“Dembow”影响下的律动感，前者中的拨号刺啦声便削弱了该曲的魔力。这首歌，以及Charli与Troye Sivan合作的轻浮而有趣的流行歌曲“1999”，与这张专辑里其他扭曲的俱乐部歌曲和抒情曲格格不入。许多以艺术家自己名字命名的专辑一样都是艺术家自身的一种映衬:在Charli的专辑中，她想要转向越轨且古怪的实验性流行乐，但又不断地想着要是这些歌能全部进入主流音乐圈又会是什么样子。

Much of Charli’s sound is an extension of the corrosive electronics on Pop 2, with producer A. G. Cook at the helm of both. He and his PC Music cohorts (Planet 1999, umru) embrace the synthetic and shiny: Glossy, arena-sized ’80s rock drums, rippling power synths, squeaky J-pop arrangements, and the relentlessly positive sound of Swedish Eurodance are repurposed and exaggerated, evoking the eerie sheen of a hyper-realistic 3D render. On “Shake It,” Charli’s voice is manipulated to sound like bubbling water, before the track is infiltrated by a small army of collaborators including Big Freedia, CupcakKe, Pabllo Vittar, and Brooke Candy, like a futuristic remake of Busta Rhymes’ infamous posse cut “Touch It (Remix).” The beat sounds like someone furiously clanging on boiler room pipes, transforming a nasty strip club track into a soundtrack for mutiny. The credits for “Click,” which ends with a montage of jagged and distorted SOPHIE-like sounds not dissimilar to farts, name 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady as responsible for “harsh noise.” Compared to the bouncy electro-pop of “1999” or the trop-pop production of “Warm” (featuring Haim), these moments provide a thrilling adrenaline rush.

这张专辑由制作人A. G. Cook掌舵，其大部分音效是延伸了《Pop 2》的电子音乐。他和他的电脑音乐伙伴们运用了很多合成音效：出彩的80年代体育场摇滚鼓声、波纹状的合成音、吱吱作响的日本流行音乐以及瑞典风欧陆舞曲中那欢快积极的声音被重新编排和放大，泛起了超现实主义3D渲染的怪异光泽。在“Shake It”中，Charli的唱腔一开始像冒泡的水，后来就被合作者们——Big Freedia、CupcakKe、Pabllo Vittar和Brooke Candy——所渗透覆盖，这首歌就像Busta Rhymes那首混音版“Touch It”的未来重制版。其节奏听起来像有人在猛敲锅炉房的水管，把一个世俗的脱衣舞俱乐部音乐变成了适合反叛现场的配乐。“Click”里参差扭曲的SOPHIE式声音蒙混在一起，这听起来和放屁没什么不同，而合作创作者Dylan Brady被认为是“刺耳噪音”的罪魁祸首。与“1999”充满活力的电子流行乐或热带风流行乐作品“Warm”（与Haim合作）相比，以上歌曲都会让人肾上腺素激增。

Charli’s crisp writing mirrors the vivid production. On “Click,” she turns herself into an onomatopoeic sound effect. The sensory details of “Next Level Charli” establish a scene in seconds: “I go speeding on the highway/Flame burning/Tire screech.” Charli credits Max Martin with teaching her the technique, commonly used by Swedish songwriters, of using words’ natural melody to create catchiness, instead of intentionally rhyming. Lifting the most effective ideas from different schools of production, she’s able to construct her own mutant strain of pop.

Charli新奇的作词带来了生动的音乐作品。在“Click”里，她将自己处理成了拟声效果。“Next Level Charli”带来的感官细节在几秒钟内就能映入听众眼帘:“我在高速公路上超速行驶/大火熊熊燃烧/轮胎发出尖细的声音。”Charli感谢Max Martin教会了她这种瑞典创作人常用的技巧，即用单词的本身发音来创造朗朗上口的效果，而不是刻意押韵。她从不同的制作流派中汲取了那些最有效的创意，从而构建自己的独特怪异的流行乐。

The album’s most potent song is the synth-pop anthem “Gone,” which blends vulnerability with outré sound. Through gritted teeth, Charli describes a party full of people who make her feel alone: “I feel so unstable/Fucking hate these people,” she sings, using the image of ice melting in her fist to illustrate her sense of panic-inducing isolation. In response, Héloïse Letissier of Christine and the Queens poses questions that are somehow relatable in their absurdity: “Am I a smoke?/Am I the sun?/Who decides?” Letissier’s abstractions are the foil to Charli’s concrete lyrics: The former evokes the spiraling crisis of the mind, the latter the blood-boiling anger that rises in the body.

这张专辑中节奏感最强的歌曲是合成器流行歌曲”Gone”，它将无力感与荒诞怪异的声音融合在一起。Charli咬紧牙关，道出了虽然身处人潮之中，仍然心感孤单，她这样唱到:“I feel so unstable/Fucking hate these people（深感危机四伏/我讨厌这些庸人。”她以拳头中融化的冰来形象的表述自己内心那种惊恐与落寞。作为回应，Christine and the Queens，也就是Heloise Letissier，提出了一些在某种程度上与他们这样荒诞做法有关的问题:“Am I a smoke?/Am I the sun?/Who decides?（我的选择我的个性谁都无法决定）”Letissier抽象的表达是在衬托Charli直白的歌词:前者唤起了螺旋式上升的精神紧绷感，后者则激起了沸腾的怒火。

Together, Charli and Letissier reach a cathartic breaking point, a rattling breakdown filled with frosty percussion, dramatic synth stabs, and stuttering vocal chops. In a recent i-D interview, Letissier asserts that Charli’s musical aesthetic, which she describes as a “hybrid” of club experimentation and earworm pop, is “deeply queer.” But in “Gone,” Charli invites another hypothesis for why her music has become so beloved by the LGBTQ+ community: Her ability to evocate a profound sense of unbelonging. When “Gone” explodes, it sounds like two people shattering the box that confined them.

由此，伴随着冰冷的打击乐、戏剧性的合成器穿刺音以及断断续续的人声，Charli和Letissier一起达到了宣泄的临界点。在最近的一次i-D采访中，Letissier称Charli的歌曲风格是舞曲和流行乐的“结合”，是“十分怪异的”。但在“Gone”中，Charli提出了另一种说法，来解释为什么她的音乐如此受到LGBTQ+群体的喜爱:她能够唤起一种深刻的归属感。当“Gone”达到高潮处时，听起来像是两个人打破了禁锢他们的牢笼。

Charli’s goal is self-examination—a new step for Charli, who’s better known for her up-tempo hedonistic bangers than her emotional deep cuts. Throughout the album, she pinpoints the source of her anxieties, investigating her relationships with substances, with her romantic partner, and with herself. She does this with heart-wrenching specificity on the ballad “Thoughts,” when, in a drugged-out stupor, she wonders if her friends are genuine. And on the electro-bop “February 2017,” featuring Clairo and Yaeji, she recaptures “Track 10”’s candor. “Sorry ’bout Grammy night/Was lying on my mind/Was in a different place/Tortured and drifting by,” she sings to her partner. So when “Official” arrives, it feels breathtakingly hopeful, as Charli sings of the little details (breakfast in bed, a magical kiss) that make her love real. Charli uncovers a singer-songwriter unafraid to display the cracks in her facade, crafting a striking portrait of what happens when a robot glitches.

Charli这样做的目的是自我反省——这对Charli来说是新的一步，享乐主义式的快节奏音乐，使她广为人知，而非她那些伤痕累累的感情生活。在整张专辑中，她找到了自己焦虑的根源，从她与物质、与亲密伴侣以及与自己的关系中找寻蛛丝马迹。她在这首歌谣“Thoughts”中，以一种令人感到心碎的方式做到了这一点。在电子波普单曲“February 2017”中，Clairo和Yaeji参与其中，再现了“Track 10”的坦率。“Sorry ’bout Grammy night/Was lying on my mind/Was in a different place/Tortured and drifting by（格莱美之夜，也只能说对不起/难道我丧心病狂了吗/仿佛置身幻境/受尽折磨，如一叶孤舟在海中漂泊），”她唱给她的合作伙伴。所以单曲“Official”来临之时，Charli吟唱着那些使她爱情变得触手可及的小细节(床上的早餐，一个令人难以忘怀的吻)时，她给人以无限的希望。Charli向人们展露了一位创作型歌手不惧正面展现自己的歌喉，描绘了当没有电音、合成器节拍时，她本来的令人惊艳的音色。