【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 Bad Bunny 2020年专辑《YHLQMDLG》
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：Peter D
审译：Lynn Liu
排版：Lynn Liu
作者： Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Bad Bunny’s second album is outstanding. It’s a big party record that pushes boundaries and pays homage to reggaetón’s past and future, all made by a swaggering star with absolutely nothing to prove.
Bad Bunny的二专完全可以用出类拔萃来形容。这位派头十足的巨星已经完全无需证明自己，并创作出了一张盛大的派对专辑，有力地推动了雷击顿（reggaetón）音乐的边界，致敬了这一流派辉煌的过去，并眺望着雷击顿的未来。
Not many parties start with someone contemplating suicide. Yet that’s how Bad Bunny chose to begin the video for “Si Veo a Tu Mamá,” the opening track of his second album, YHLQMDLG. We see a close-up of a despondent young man, standing on a stool and staring through a noose, ready to hang himself as a party buzzes around him. He’s saved by an empathetic little boy who understands his pain, and introduces him to the cure: Listening to Bad Bunny.
一般来说，很少有派对是从一个想要自杀的人开始的。但Bad Bunny却选择让“Si Veo a Tu Mamá（如果我遇见你的母亲）”的MV从这样一个场景开始，而这首歌也正是他的二专《YHLQMDLG》的开场曲。镜头从一个十分消沉的年轻人的脸部特写开始，慢慢拉远；他站在凳子上，透过一个绳圈凝视着周遭欢腾的派对，准备上吊结束自己的生命。一位能够理解他的痛苦的小男孩救下了他，并给他开出了一剂治愈心病的良方——听Bad Bunny的歌。
It’s a macabre choice for a dance record, a collection of distinctly Puerto Rican party beats that pays homage to reggaetón’s past and future. And on its surface, the song, built atop a morose, Casiotoned version of the “Girl From Ipanema” bossa nova melody, might seem more suited for the elevator of a Florida nursing home than the club. But it’s also firmly aligned with the somewhat paradoxical ethos of YHLQMDLG (an acronym for Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana, or “I do whatever I want”). Bad Bunny might know what it feels like to be sad, but he also knows the path to salvation is believing in himself, and with that, he can do whatever he wants—and pull it off with swagger.
这一选择有些让人毛骨悚然，尤其是对于这样一张集合波多黎各派对节奏、致敬雷击顿音乐（reggaetón）的过去和未来的舞曲专辑。同时，从表相上看，这首歌曲基于一段名叫“Girl From Ipanema（来自伊帕内马海滩的女孩）”的巴萨诺瓦（译者注：bossa nova，巴西音乐风格）风格的旋律，并改编成带点忧郁气质的电子琴版本，可能更适合在佛罗里达州的疗养院电梯里播放，而非舞池里。但它却恰好与专辑《YHLQMDLG》（Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana的首字母缩写，意即“随心所欲”）的有些矛盾的精神内核达成了一致。Bad Bunny可能清楚悲伤是什么样的体验，但他更清楚，其解脱之道便是相信自己，并且只要有这份自信，他就能做到一切想做的事——并且带上十足的派头。
Bad Bunny rose to stardom riding the Latin trap wave, crooning over beats constructed with 808 drums, bleeding synth bass, and narcotized atmospherics. It all borrowed heavily from the sounds of late-’00s Southern hip-hop, adding the idiosyncrasies of the flow en Español and a Caribbean POV. For YHLQMDLG, he reaches back even further to the glory days of reggaetón, sidelining Anglo guest stars for OGs like Daddy Yankee, Yaviah, Ñengo Flow, and Jowell y Randy.
乘着时兴的Latin trap的浪潮，Bad Bunny伴着用808鼓机、沉重的合成器低音和令人眩晕的氛围感构筑出的节奏哼唱着，一跃成为了巨星。他的音乐大量借鉴了00年代末期的美国南部嘻哈，并融入了西语flow的特点和加勒比海地区的特有视角。而在《YHLQMDLG》中，他更加深入地回溯了雷击顿音乐的光辉岁月，英语明星们被挤到一边，Daddy Yankee， Yaviah,，Ñengo Flow以及Jowell y Randy等传统的雷击顿大佬们则被请回了舞台。
YHLQMDLG plays like a mixtape for a San Juan marquesina—the underground garage parties Bad Bunny referenced on X 100PRE’s “Cuando Perriabas.” He curates a playlist of diverse perreo jams with a singular, unwavering focus: having fun. Where X 100PRE felt like a tightly sequenced statement of identity, YHLQMDLG is both looser and freer, a party record made by a young star with nothing to prove. The highlights are plentiful; early singles “Vete” and “Ignorantes” occupy the suave sadboi lane he’s best known for, but “Yo Perreo Sola” and “Bichiyal” rock raw, stripped-down reggaetón beats evocative of the genre’s “Gasolina” era. And he doesn’t completely abandon the sounds of the trap, either: The Anuel AA collab “Está Cabrón Ser Yo” could just have easily found itself on the Migos’ Culture III.
《YHLQMDLG》就像一份专为圣胡安的“marquesina”——Bad Bunny曾在上一专《X 100PRE（永远）》中的“Cuando Perriabas（当我喝醉时）”中所提到的一种地下车库派对——所准备的歌单。他组织这样一份充满了各种类型的perreo舞曲（译者注：波多黎各地区的一种音乐和舞蹈类型，与雷击顿音乐关系密切）的歌单时只有一个简单但毫不动摇的动机——尽情玩乐。相比起《X 100PRE》专辑那份按部就班的身份宣言色彩，《YHLQMDLG》更放松，更自由，它就是一张由一位已经无需证明的巨星所创作的派对专辑。专辑中的亮点比比皆是；先行单曲“Vete（走开）” 和 “Ignorantes（无知）”中，他继续扮演着最为人所熟知的老练的悲伤男孩（译者注：suave sadboi，是Pitchfork杂志给他之前的单曲“Caro”的评语）角色，但“Yo Perreo Sola（我独自跳舞）”和 “Bichiyal”中生猛又干练的雷击顿节奏把我们一下带回了“Gasolina（汽油）” （译者注：Daddy Yankee于2003年发行的单曲）的那个年代。同时他也没有完全抛弃trap曲风：和Anuel AA合作的“Está Cabrón Ser Yo（这个混蛋就是我）”放到Migos的《Culture III》中也不会有丝毫违和感。
From a production standpoint, the record is nearly flawless. The bulk of YHLQMDLG strikes a balance between reggaetón’s dembow riddim and an island-influenced Latin trap palette. Bad Bunny leans heavily on the production duo Subelo NEO, but also taps former Luny Tunes protege Tainy for a handful of songs. And even his dabbles in rock are expertly engineered—the emocore breakdown on “Hablamos Mañana” is so epic one might forget the tinny production that almost ruined X 100PRE’s otherwise catchy pop-punk foray, “Tenemos Que Hablar.” The mood is joyful throughout YHLQMDLG, updating some of early reggaetón’s darker, grittier textures with a bright tropical sheen better suited to Bad Bunny’s personality. The sequencing is a bit scattershot, but rather than distract, it keeps the classic reggaetón riddim sounding fresh across the album’s sprawling 20-song tracklist.
这张专辑就制作层面而言可以说完美无瑕。专辑的主体在在雷击顿乐的dembow节奏（译者注：起源于牙买加，为雷击顿音乐的重要组成部分）和波多黎各Latin trap间找到了平衡。大部分内容依靠制作二人组Subelo NEO完成，同时Bad Bunny也委托Luny Tunes的徒弟Tainy制作了好几首歌。甚至他对于摇滚的再次尝试有着极为专业的处理——“Hablamos Mañana（明天再说）”中情绪摇滚风格的间奏气势磅礴，好到让人几乎要忘记那差点毁了《X 100PRE》的流行朋克尝试之作“Tenemos Que Hablar（我们需要谈谈）”中尖声尖气的制作。《YHLQMDLG》中的情绪一直保持着轻松愉悦，用一种更符合Bad Bunny个性的热带激情色泽，让早期雷击顿音乐中那更灰暗、更真实的质地焕然一新。专辑曲序略微有些漫无目的，但专辑在整整20首的曲目中让雷击顿节奏一直充满新鲜感，不至于让人分心。
A perfect example is the album’s centerpiece, “Safaera,” a self-contained microcosm of YHLQMDLG’s collage aesthetic. More suite than song, the five-minute reggaetón symphony changes tempos eight times and features a new beat nearly every verse. It seamlessly integrates recognizable hits—Alexis y Fido and Baby Ranks’ “El Tiburón” and Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On,” among others—without ever sounding stale. To find anything remotely like it you’d have to dig up one of DJ Playero’s mixtapes from The Noise era of reggaetón, which blended dancehall, reggae, and rap en Español into a sound that would ultimately coalesce into the reggaetón we know today. That these shadows of the genre’s history—from a time when it was so underground it was literally criminalized—have such a prominent place on one of the most anticipated pop records of the year is nothing short of remarkable.
最好的例子就是专辑最中间的那首“Safaera（放纵）”，它也是《YHLQMDLG》专辑拼贴美学的一个缩影。这首5分钟的“雷击顿交响乐”中变换了8次节奏，几乎每段主歌都换一个拍子，听上去更像是一首组曲，而不单单是一首歌。好几首耳熟能详的热单——Alexis y Fido和Baby Ranks的 “El Tiburón（鲨鱼）”， Missy Elliott的“Get Ur Freak On（疯起来）”等等——被精妙地融入歌曲中，听起来也丝毫不觉得过时。要想找到稍微接近它一些的音乐，就得一直追溯到雷击顿的“噪音时代”时DJ Playero的混音带，这些歌把浩室舞曲、雷鬼和西语说唱融合在一起，最终形成了如今我们听到的雷击顿。这些雷击顿历史所投下的影子——当时太过先锋，以至于几乎是非法的——被当下最受瞩目之一的流行专辑摆到了如此突出的地位，这只能用非凡来形容。
His ability to push reggaetón forward while paying homage to its past is commendable, but the way he uses visuals is of equal importance to his evolution into a pop star. On its surface, “La Difícil” is about a hard-to-get video vixen, a girl who knows that everyone wants her and uses it to her advantage. Yet the video itself feels infinitely more empathetic, giving a backstory to the women typically used as one-dimensional scenery in nearly every urbano video—in this case, a single mom who’s doing her best for her daughter. This is no aberration; as Bad Bunny’s budgets have swollen and his creative control solidified, he’s used the medium to flip the script on tropes that have made urbano feel stale, offering visibility to the underrepresented, or placing himself firmly in opposition to misogyny and homophobia. Genesis “Nesi” Rios’ missing performance credit on “Yo Perreo Sola”—a song defined by her hook—proves he still has some work to do. But even if he makes some of the same mistakes as his reggaetón forebears, he’s still doing more than most to bring progressive politics into the Latin mainstream.
And when urbano’s brightest young star wears a skirt and nail polish on the Tonight Show, silently demanding we put respect on a murdered woman’s name, it brings us one step closer to a new standard of inclusion, and encourages marginalized people to live their truth in the face of oppression. Musically, one need look no farther than J Balvin’s post-2016 work for evidence of Bad Bunny’s influence on his peers, and while he looks up to his senior contemporary, he left a significantly larger impression on their collaborative LP Oasis. So even if he follows through on his threat from the album’s closing track “<3” —(“Y en nueve meses vuelvo y saco otro/Pa' retirarme tranquilo como Miguel Cotto” or “And in nine months I’ll return and drop one more/Then I’ll quietly retire like Miguel Cotto”)—not only will he have left behind a career’s worth of hits in just four short years, he’ll have reshaped urbano in his own image.
Bad Bunny在致敬雷击顿历史的同时，推动这一流派的发展，他这样的能力值得大加赞赏，但在进化成流行巨星的路上，他对于视觉的运用也有着同等重要的贡献。表面看来，“La Difícil（难）”讲的就是一个难以接近的性感尤物，她知道所有人都想要她，并引以为傲。但歌曲的MV却有着无限的同理心，这些几乎每首拉丁都市音乐的MV中都会出现的扁平化女性形象这次也有了自己的背景故事——这部MV中，她是一位为女儿全心全意付出的单亲妈妈。这并不是什么偶然行为；随着Bad Bunny的预算逐渐丰厚，他的种种创意得以落实，他利用媒体扭转着种种拉丁圈子里的陈腐气息，并把自己牢牢树立在厌女和恐同的对立面。不过Genesis “Nesi” Rios在“Yo Perreo Sola”——一首因她演唱的副歌而瞩目的歌——中没有署名，说明他还有路要走。不过即使他也在犯和那些雷击顿前辈们同样的错误，但在为拉丁主流市场带去进步的声音这一点上，他仍然比大多数人有着更多的贡献。
而当这位拉丁圈最耀眼的年轻明星穿着短裙、涂着指甲油出现在“今夜秀”的舞台上，无声地提醒着我们尊重一位被谋杀的女人（译者注：他表演时穿着写有“他们杀死了Alexa，而不是一个穿着裙子的男人”的T恤，而Alexa是一名被谋杀的性转女子），这一行为让更多人关注到这一事件，并鼓励那些社会的边缘化人群在压迫下也能活出真正的自己。音乐层面，无需翻找J Balvin 2016年之前的作品，你就能找到Bad Bunny对他的同伴留下的影响的痕迹，一方面他非常尊重这位比他稍大些的同辈，另一方面也在他们的合作专辑《Oasis（绿洲）》中留下了更为深刻的印记。所以即使他真的要如他在专辑结束曲“<3”中所说的那样做(“Y en nueve meses vuelvo y saco otro/Pa' retirarme tranquilo como Miguel Cotto”即“9个月后我会回来在发一张/然后就像Miguel Cotto一样静静退休”)，他不仅在短短4年中留下大把抵得上别人整个职业生涯的热单，更是用他自己的形象重塑了拉丁都市音乐。
