【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 Kacey Musgraves 2018年专辑《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：WhitneyL    

校正：Ryan-Chopin

The mystical grandeur of Golden Hour creates a magnetic effect as Kacey Musgraves sings simply about the world as if she’s the first person to notice, and you’re the first one she’s telling.

神秘的《Golden Hour(黄金时刻)》创造了一种磁力效应，就像Kacey Musgraves所唱的那样，若她是第一个探索世界的人，你将是她诉说世界的第一个人。

Kacey Musgraves’ third album goes down so smoothly that it might not even scan as a total reinvention. Throughout the songs on Golden Hour, the East Texas singer-songwriter is radiant, awestruck, taking the scenic route to the bar just for the hell of it. After Musgraves’ previous two albums, which felt like they were cut from the same home-sewn flannel cloth, she now ventures beyond the front-porch hum of country music. The new Kacey Musgraves needs strings, vocoders, disco beats. And if this sounds like a left turn for the lovable cynic who once characterized the world as an absurd beauty contest, a vicious cycle, a bad party, and a toxic boys’ club, well, that’s kinda the point.

Kacey Musgraves的第三张专辑制作进展得太过顺利，以至于很难被视为全新的创作。在《Golden Hour(黄金时刻)》整张专辑中，这位来自东德克萨斯的创作型歌手光芒四射，令人眼前一亮。Musgraves之前的两张专辑曲风相似，平平无奇。但是如今，她俨然已经步入了乡村音乐的前沿。全新的Kacey Musgraves需要弦乐、鼓点和迪斯科节奏。这听起来就像她曾把世界视为一场荒谬的选美比赛、一个恶性循环、一场疯狂的派对或是一个坏男孩俱乐部，现在却突然变得愤世嫉俗。

Since her last proper album, 2015’s Pageant Material, the now 29-year-old singer-songwriter has changed her perspective. There was a spirited Christmas record, a creatively charged acid trip, and a rustic country wedding. It’s like Musgraves’ life was given the season-finale treatment: a series of climactic turns that left her standing misty-eyed on a cliffside, bellowing “I get it!” at the sunrise. She’s updated her music accordingly. On Golden Hour, everything sprawls and swells and gushes, a gaping sky that makes the sonic landscapes of her previous albums feel like mere set dressing. For these songs of hope and wonder, she nods to meticulous folk epics like Beck’s Sea Change, or Sufjan Stevens’ Seven Swans if it was re-cut for an IMAX screen. She’s settled on enlightenment as a new resting state.

回望她的上一张专辑《Pageant Material（填充材料）》，自2015年发布到现在，这位29岁的创作型歌手已改变了她的视角。她的这张新专辑中有令人振奋的圣诞歌曲，充满创意的迷幻之旅，还有淳朴的乡村婚礼。这就像Musgraves的生活被赋予了一场季终性的治疗，一系列汹涌的海浪退去之后，日出之时，让站在悬崖边的她泪眼朦胧，咆哮着喊道"我懂了!”。由此，她对她的音乐做出了改变。在《黄金时刻》中，一切都是无章可循、跌宕起伏、喷涌而出的，如此多变的风格将她之前的专辑变得就像陪衬一样。这些充满着希望和奇迹的歌曲，是她向Beck的“Sea Change(海的变化)”、Sufjan Stevens的“Seven Swans（七只天鹅）”等民间史诗型歌曲的致敬。开悟成为了她的一种新的休息状态。

The result is Musgraves’ most accessible record and her most ambitious, a magnetic, comfortable culmination of her pop and country instincts. While dynamic enough to house both the stirring, alone-at-the-piano fragment “Mother” and a full-on country-disco kiss-off in “High Horse,” Golden Hour is alluringly cohesive, both lyrically and musically. In “Wonder Woman,” she confronts a partner’s unrealistic expectations and gives a simple counter: “All I need’s a place to land.” Throughout these songs, she finds one.

这使得《黄金时刻》成为Musgraves最成功的唱片，并且这成为她流行和乡村乐最具野心、最具吸引力、最舒畅的顶峰。《黄金时刻》足以容纳那激动人心的独奏钢琴曲“Mother（母亲）”和充满乡村节奏情调的“High Horse（傲慢的态度）”，《黄金时刻》在歌词和音乐上都极具吸引力。在“Wonder Woman（神奇女侠）”中，面对伴侣不切实际的期望，她给出了一个简单的回答:“我只需要一个落脚的地方。”在这些歌曲中，她确实找到了。

Despite the grandeur of its music, Golden Hour offers Musgraves’ most understated songwriting, a refreshing evolution as stars like Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga accidentally turn Americana-pop into grim satire. In the stunning single “Space Cowboy,” she weaves in at least a dozen genre tropes without drawing any attention to them. Instead, you’re left dazzled by the way her bold, drawling voice can cut through simple ideas—“Sunsets fade/And love does too”—like she’s the first person to notice, and you’re the first one she’s telling.

尽管《黄金时刻》的音乐气势宏大，但它却包含了Musgraves轻描淡写般的创作，这是一种令人耳目一新的改变，正如Justin Timberlake和Lady Gaga等明星意外地将美国流行音乐变成了冷酷的讽刺。在令人惊艳的单曲“Space Cowboy（太空牛仔）”中，她巧妙地编织了至少十几种风格的比喻。然而，她那大胆、拖沓的声音却能穿透简单的思想——“日落消逝，爱也如此”——让你受到最原始的冲击。就像文中开头所说的那样，若她是第一个探索世界的人，你将是她诉说世界的第一个人。

Sometimes, that familiarity belies the complexity of these songs. Tracks like “Love Is a Wild Thing” and “Oh, What a World” swirl around the positive messages in their titles in a state of euphoria. Musgraves includes precious few of the subtle details that made her 2013 breakthrough, Same Trailer Different Park, feel so instantly familiar. On a previous record, she might have provided a tour of the neighborhood that landlocks the star-crossed home-bodies in “Lonely Weekend,” or cracked a stoner joke about the “plants that grow and open your mind” in “Oh, What a World.” In the places where you’d expect Musgraves to land her punches, she sometimes offers just a wistful sigh.

而有时，这种随意性掩盖了这些歌曲的复杂性。就像“Love Is a Wild Thing（爱是一件疯狂的事）”和“Oh, What a World（哦，多么美妙的世界）”这样的歌曲在欢快的节奏中，围绕着标题传达出了一种积极向上信息。Musgraves在这张专辑中所运用到的精妙的细节与她在2013年做出的突破，《Same Trailer Different Park（同样的拖车在不同的公园）》这张专辑中有惊人的相似。在之前的专辑中，她可能会在“Lonely Weekend（孤独的周末）”中让那些不幸的大男子主义的男人滚去别的地方，或者在“Oh, What a World（哦，多么美妙的世界）”中开一个关于“这些植物能开拓和开发你的思维”的玩笑。在你以为Musgraves会出手的地方，她有时只是发出一声沉默的叹息。

But if the tension in her earlier work came from her sharp observations and underdog spirit, there’s something more complicated at play here. “Is there a word for the way that I’m feeling tonight,” she asks in “Happy & Sad,” attempting to pinpoint the creeping melancholy undercutting an otherwise blissful evening. Golden Hour is an album-length ode to not having the right words, to being overcome by the moment and surrendering to it.

但如果说她早期作品中的紧张感来自她敏锐的观察力和受压迫者的精神，那么这里还有更复杂的东西在起着作用。她在“Happy & Sad（快乐和悲伤）”中问道:“有什么词可以形容我今晚的感受吗?” ，试图在指出，令人毛骨悚然的忧郁正在破坏这个原本幸福的夜晚。《黄金时刻》是一张没有合适的颂词的颂歌，但是却能被它那些瞬间所折服。

Musgraves’ songwriting melts seamlessly between celebration—in heart-eyed-emoji anthems like “Butterflies” and “Velvet Elvis”—and elegies for when those feelings start to dim. The cinematic arrangements rarely distinguish between those two modes, coating the album in a pristine, sepia glow that makes tales of solitude like “Lonely Weekend” seem downright inviting. There’s a subtle awareness throughout these songs of what happens as soon as the golden hour ends, how quickly that burst of light can fade without a trace. In the title track, Musgraves compares her contentment to a temporary trick of the light: “All that I know,” she admits, “Is you caught me at the right time.”

Musgraves的歌曲创作在庆祝和哀叹之间无缝融合：用类似“Butterflies”和“Velvet Elvis”这样的表情符号唱出赞歌；当这种感觉开始黯淡时，哀歌就会响起。而专辑内页摄影很少将两者区分，只是涂上了一层质朴的褐色，让“Lonely Weekend（孤独的周末）”这样孤独的故事显得格外诱人。在这些歌曲中，有一种微妙的联系，那就是当黄金时刻结束时，那束光会迅速地消失得无影无踪。在主打歌中，Musgraves把她的满意度比作光的瞬间:“我所知道的，”她说道，“就是你在合适的时间遇到了我。”

Less concerned with outside forces than internal balance, Golden Hour stands as an assured, artful snapshot of a particular rush of feelings, but its wisdom speaks volumes to Musgraves’ ongoing evolution. “If you’re ever gonna find a silver lining,” she sang in the first track on her major label debut, “It’s gotta be a cloudy day.” Even then, she suspected that ecstasy is most rewarding when it’s hard-won. On Golden Hour, she wears the sunlight well.

相对于外部力量，《黄金时刻》更关注内部平衡，它是对某种特定的情感的一种可靠、技巧性的抓拍，但它的智慧充分说明了Musgraves正在不断的提升。“如果你想找到一线希望，”她在首张专辑的第一首歌曲中唱道，“那一定是阴天。”即便如此，她还是在期望，在某些困难的时候，奇迹仍然是存在的。在这《黄金时刻》，她就是最闪耀的光芒。