【搬运】【译】滚石杂志Rolling Stone评Ariana Grande专辑《Sweetener》

翻译：Alice Song

校正：Lynn Liu/Ryan-Chopin

Ariana Grande is determined to be a light on her fourth album. And no one has needed that light more than Grande herself. The last year has marked a tumultuous, even transformative, period for the 25-year-old pop superstar. In May, 2017, her concert in Manchester, England was the site of a terrorist bombing in which 23 people were killed. As she recovered from the post-attack trauma, Grande experienced the dissolution of a toxic relationship with rapper Mac Miller.

快速度过伤痛后的A妹（Ariana Grande）发行了她音乐生涯中最好的唱片。Ariana Grande回归平静，从《sweetener》中衍生乐趣。A妹打造第四张专辑时，增添了她正迫切需要的创新。去年，可以说是这位25岁流行歌手人生一大转折。2017年五月，她在英国曼彻斯特举办演唱会后，场馆中发生了恐怖分子炸弹袭击事件，23人遇难。当她从袭击事件的伤痛中缓过来之后，又结束了与说唱歌手 Mac Miller不美好的恋情。

Sweetener is not the sad, serious ballad-heavy album many probably expected Grande to make, but it sure is the one she needed to. It’s a refreshing, cohesive package, following three albums of sometimes messy but always fun attempts at placing her own personality in the pop landscape. She’s let her ponytail down, metaphorically and literally (check the album’s cover) and let joy lead the way. Whether she’s flaunting her accomplishments (the gleeful “Successful”) or relishing her “soulmate” on the sweet and tender “Pete Davidson,” a song that gets the point across with its title alone, she’s found her serenity.

Pharrell Williams和Max Martin的 Wolf Cousins可谓《sweetener》的最强合作者。毫无疑问，Martin和Williams找到了让A妹夺人眼球的关键——不拘泥于花哨形式，突出她的完美嗓音。让人惊喜的是，他们以独特的编曲方制作了这张唱片，使它成为A妹有史以来最专注也最具个人特色的唱片，也使得A妹诱人的简单表达方式，成为她除了能参与百老汇音乐剧以外的又一喜人天赋。

Pharrell Williams and Max Martin’s Wolf Cousins songwriting and production camp are the most prolific collaborators on Sweetener. Already sure pop bets, Martin and Williams get to the core of what makes Grande worth paying attention to, letting her voice take the lead instead of drowning it in genre gimmicks. Their unique approaches to song-structure surprisingly help make it her most focused and personality-encapsulating LP yet, letting Grande’s easy way with trap phrasing find a home next to her flair for Broadway-esque dramatic runs.

《sweetener》随着“raindrops”拉开序幕，这实际是一段三十秒的阿卡贝拉，节选自四季合唱团（the Four Seasons）的“An Angel Cried”。它作为专辑开篇曲目，预示了专辑的全新风格。尽管有一点混杂，但A妹的嗓音在不加修饰时依旧宛如天籁。下一首歌与威廉姆斯合作的单曲风格一转，是一首偏蓝调，混和着放克的“Blazed”，然后是有着明显Missy Elliott风格的“Borderline”（尽管歌曲中Missy的部分相比较少）。同名曲（“sweetener”）是一支欢快提神，很抓耳的单曲，而“R.E.M”则是舒缓又深情，带着一丝性感挑逗与不切实际，A妹早该尝试此风格，这也非常适合她。

Sweetener begins with a manifesto of sorts: a reworking of the Four Seasons’ “An Angel Cried” — titled “Raindrops” here and turned into a 30-second acapella premonition of what’s to come. While a bit out of place, Grande’s voice sounds absolutely superb with pop production stripped away. It’s followed by a heavily R&B leaning collection, mixing funky, clubby moments like the Williams-assisted “Blazed” and the Missy Elliott-featuring “Borderline” (though the latter’s appearance is much too short). The title track is a bouncy, almost wickedly catchy highlight, while the luxurious “R.E.M.” is a soulful, sexy romp that is the platonic ideal of the type of song Grande could and should be making for years to come.

前期发行的“The Light is Coming”是专辑中的败笔，有趣的节奏没必要被一遍遍地重复，导致本想强调的声音反而被节奏淹没了，这个声音取自宾夕法尼亚州市政厅的一次乡村集会（威廉姆斯以前就用过两次这个小样了，Rihanna的合作单曲“Lemon”就采样过）。

Early release “The Light is Coming” is a weak spot: a fun beat swallowed by the repetition of an unnecessary, overly prominent voice sampled from a viral moment during a raucous town hall in Pennsylvania during the Obamacare debate (Williams has used samples from this clip twice before, including on the hit Rihanna collaboration “Lemon”).

值得一提的是，《sweetener》的黑暗时刻并不那么苦涩。“Breathin”是对“忧虑”进行的不同寻常的探索，而“Everytime”则是一首动听的，自我反思的分手抒情曲。听来渐入佳境的单曲“God Is a Woman”可谓是整张专辑中的经典。然而这首位于“C位”的单曲，五味杂陈，找到了唱片中众多情歌和其他伤感歌曲感官上的平衡。“Goodnight n Go”改编自A妹最喜欢的艺术家之一——Imogen Heap的同名歌曲。这是A妹一展歌喉的重要时刻，就在她把合唱团的男高音的假声处理得那么流畅时，她也是在给歌曲的剧情（一个女孩爱上她的朋友）和她自己都下了一个赌注。

The darker moments on Sweetener are never too bitter, thankfully. “Breathin” is an exceptional exploration of anxiety, while “Everytime” is a gorgeous, self-reflective break-up ballad. The slow-burning single “God Is a Woman” feels even more sublime as part of the total package. The centerpiece of the album, however, mixes the sour and the sweet, finding  the balance between the sensual romance of the album’s plentiful love songs and the aching heartbreak of the others. “Goodnight n Go” reworks a song of the same name by one of Grande’s favorite artists, Imogen Heap. It’s a breathtaking moment of vocal interpretation from the singer, who raises the stakes both for the song’s storyline (about a girl falling in love with her friend) and for Grande herself as she makes the chorus’ falsetto seem easy.

找寻光芒总是比受困于黑暗更难，但是在《sweetener》中我们能发现，A妹轻而易举走出了阴霾，难能可贵的是她能将其付诸现实。A妹找寻的那束光敦促着她继续前行，并创造出了她有史以来最好的唱片，同时，也是2018年欧美流行乐坛中最强有力的唱片之一。