【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评Logic 2019年专辑《Supermarket》

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：Tyler Smith

校正：Ryan-Chopin

排版：Ryan-Chopin

From clumsy stadium rock to unacceptable ska, Logic’s overly ambitious album is a painful slog.

粗糙的体育场摇滚到生涩的斯卡乐，Logic这张专辑可谓费力不讨好

Four minutes into “Bohemian Trapsody,” the hamfisted opener of Logic’s new album, Supermarket, and you find yourself inside a never-ending Pro Tools session. The track’s acoustic guitar and four-on-the-floor bass—which sound ripped from a karaoke instrumental of a Gorillaz song—have faded away to make room for a trip-hop drum break that then falls into a stuttering Trap drop.

新专辑《Supermarket》的开场曲目“Supermarket”是一首四分钟的“波西米亚狂想曲”，但模仿得只能说是笨手笨脚，听众仿佛置身一个永无止境的工具残缺的演奏会。这首歌里的原声吉他和四四拍贝斯听起来像是从卡拉OK里“街头霸王”（一个虚拟乐队）的一首歌中硬生生截出来的，之后便是吹泡鼓的专场，紧接着是Trap桥段的高潮部分。

In all, “Bohemian Trapsody” contains three beat changes, no rapping, and a space-rock chorus. It is also nowhere near the most ridiculous thing recorded for a project that also features an acoustic A Tribe Called Quest cover, multiple Thom Yorke impressions, and two Mac DeMarco features. From clumsy stadium rock to reggae-tinged ska, Supermarket is a painful journey across guitar music of the past five decades and makes Lil Wayne’s Rebirth look well-thought-out in comparison.

而“波西米亚狂想曲”原曲包含三种节拍变化和太空摇滚的副歌，但没有说唱。十分荒谬的是，这张专辑采样了A Tribe Called Quest乐队原声专辑的封面，零零散散地模仿了Thom Yorke，效果却略显滑稽，此外，居然还有两处Mac Demarco的特征。从笨拙的体育场摇滚到雷鬼风的斯卡乐，《Supermarket》是过去几年失败的吉他演奏集合，它让同期回归的Lil Wayne显得选对了时候。

The album stems from Logic’s novel of the same name, which quickly became the No. 1 bestseller on Amazon despite the rapper admitting that he’s not much of a reader. That sort of chutzpah has always been at the center of his artistry, which is based around regurgitating the styles of abstract, genre-pushing MCs into earnest, easier-to-digest forms. This dumbing-down process has allowed him to reach younger audiences who crave the wordplay of golden-age hip-hop but aren’t necessarily interested in its grittiness. It’s also given him free rein to be as nerdy and uncompromising as he’s wanted to be, from releasing an album that takes place in outer space 100 years in the future to a record narrated by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to a Wu-Tang Clan tribute featuring every living member of the group. But the vital difference between those projects and Supermarket is that his rubbery rapid-fire delivery, the one skill that earned him enough points as an MC to continuously reinvent himself, is almost entirely absent here.

这张专辑灵感来自于Logic的同名小说，它曾迅速登顶亚马逊的畅销书榜单，然而，这位嘻哈歌手坦言他自己并没有读过很多书。这种勇于尝试的胆量一直都是Logic艺术风格的核心，也就是将抽象而流派化的说唱转化为更真诚的易消化的形式，这种简化的过程使他能够接触到更年轻的听众，这些听众追求鼎盛时期的嘻哈中的文字游戏，却并不在乎其创作过程中的艰辛。同时，这份胆量也让他放飞自我变得书呆子般执拗。一张应存在于外太空的未来式专辑，天体物理学家Neil deGrasse Tyson讲述的历史记录以及Wu-Tang Clan乐队在世成员创作的颂歌，列举的这几项与专辑《Supermarket》最大的不同点是Logic富有弹性，急速射出的吐词方式，这一点充分证明他是一个熟练的说唱歌手并且在不断地自我创新，不过不幸的是Logic在这张专辑中也丧失了这一大优势。

In its place are long stretches of dull, dried-out singing by a guy who can’t sing. Logic’s frail hum mostly comes off lethargic, like on the monotonous “Best Friend,” a glossy Southern rock track without any drama, or the title track, a pre-fab alt-rock anthem that imagines a world where Thom Yorke was a literal creep: “I’m a weirdo, I’m a freak/I wish I could watch you in your sleep.” The Maryland MC is shameless in his desire to recreate the sounds of influential bands, at some points going so far as to clumsily call them out by name. Rather than coming off like his frontman idols, though, he resembles the lead singer of a cover band on a cruise ship, failing to capture any of the magic of the original material.

专辑里似乎有一个不会唱歌的人发出沉闷的干吼，Logic微弱的哼唱无精打采，例如无聊的“Best Friend”，作为一首浮夸的南方摇滚，却无任何戏剧性可言。再比如专辑同名曲，一首组合式的alt-rock颂歌，在这歌里，Thom Yorke变成了个讨厌鬼：I’m a weirdo I’m a freak/I wish I could watch you in your sleep.”（我是个怪人，我是个狂人，我希望能看着你入睡。）这位来自马里兰州的嘻哈歌手厚着脸皮地对著名乐队们进行东施效颦，有时甚至蠢到把他们的名字都叫出来了。他并未能够表现的像他所致敬的偶像一般，反而像极了在游船上表演的翻唱乐队，总是能够把原曲的精髓抛掉。

On “Lemon Drop,” for example, he hilariously tries out the funky scat of Blood Sugar Sex Magik-era Red Hot Chili Peppers, only to come off more like Weird Al’s 1993 impression of the band. And then there’s the two DeMarco-produced tracks, which could serve as parodies of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s sound in how formulaic and insular they sound; it’s like Logic is singing over looped versions of past releases rather than working with DeMarco to create something new.

举个例子，在“Lemon Drop”这首歌里，他尝试着再现红辣椒乐队的Sugar Sex Magik-era Red中funk式的拟声唱法，但却弄巧成拙，把他表现成了音乐恶搞专家1993的滑稽乐队表演。还有两首DeMarco制作的单曲，公式化的套用和僵硬的编排只能说是对这位加拿大唱作人自己十分拙劣的模仿。貌似Logic仍在吃老本而毫无创新。

But the most egregious moments on the album come when Logic tries to tack on hip-hop elements as afterthoughts, most painfully on “Can I Kick It,” a soulless A Tribe Called Quest cover. There’s also “Baby,” the millionth rework of Biz Markie’s 1989 classic “Just A Friend” and probably one of the worse versions yet, as well as a handful of Trap drops slapped on the backends of songs, as if during the album’s mastering session Logic had some last-minute concerns about the viability of dropping a project without any hi-hats. In that moment, maybe he realized his unchecked ambition had finally gone too far.

但这张专辑最过分之处还是在于Logic居然把说唱元素作为一种补救品，对A Tribe Called Quest毫无灵魂的致敬之作“Can I Kick It”最能体现这一惨痛的事实。还有“Baby”这首歌，这是不知道第几次对Biz Markie 1989年的经典之作“Just A Friend”的改编，但这首可能是最糟糕的一个版本。在许多歌里，Trap高潮随意地拼接到歌曲的后半段，仿佛在专辑每首歌的制作阶段，Logic在每首歌的最后一分钟都会产生一些“奇思妙想”：说不定能插进一段没有踩镲的东西呢？在那一刻，他很难意识到自己过于放任的追求实在是有些过火了。