【译】Slant评Kylie Minogue 2010年专辑《Aphrodite》（爱神）

翻译：Nomanlandever

The varied, some might say scattershot, production style of Kylie Minogue’s 2007 album X was lamented in these very pages, but like its predecessor, the underrated Body Language, the album’s strength was the Aussie pop star’s willingness to toy with her sound. Without risks, there can be no rewards, and for every awkwardly forced attempt to mine stateside trends, like “Nu-Di-Ty,” there was a more successful genre experiment, like “Speakerphone.”

Kylie Minogue 2007年制作风格多样的专辑《X》，可能有人会说是不用心的大杂烩风在这张专辑体现得淋漓尽致。之后几年，我们对这张专辑报以遗憾之情，但就如它的前作《Body Language》，这张专辑的优势在于这位澳大利亚流行歌手愿意玩弄自己的声音。没有风险，就不可能有回报。对于每一个被迫笨拙地挖掘美国流行趋势的尝试，比如《Nu-Di-Ty》，都有一个更成功的试验案例，比如《Speakerphone》。

Minogue’s Aphrodite, however, is the sound of an artist playing it safe. It’s more stylistically coherent than the abovementioned albums, but it yields far fewer surprises. There’s no “Sensitized” or “Slow” here. Instead, we get an entire album’s worth of tracks like “Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)” and “Too Much,” which could be described as “classic Kylie.” That will no doubt please longtime fans, but it also means Aphrodite is nothing more than just another Kylie Minogue album; it doesn’t add much to her otherwise diverse catalogue or push her forward in any meaningful way, as both Body Language and 1997’s Impossible Princess did. To quote “Better Than Today,” one of the new songs on the album: “What’s the point of living if you don’t take a chance?”

然而，《Aphrodite》则是一位谨慎行事的艺术家做出的音乐。它在风格上比上文提到的专辑更连贯，但它产生的惊喜少得多。专辑里没有类似“Sensitized”或 “Slow”的歌曲。反而，我们在”Put Your Hands Up“和”Too Much“听汲取到了整张专辑的价值，可以被归类为”经典凯莉“，这无疑在老粉中很讨喜。但，这也意味着《Arphrodite》只不过又是一张Kylie Minogue的平平无奇的专辑，它并没有像《Body Language》和1997年的《Impossible Princess》那样，为她原本多元化的歌唱生涯增添多少新内容，也没有以任何有意义的方式推动她前进。引用专辑中的一首新歌《Better Than Today》中的歌词：“What’s the point of living if you don’t take a chance?”

It took me a while to warm up to the simple pleasures of Minogue’s U.S. breakthrough, Fever, and it’s possible the same could happen here: Lead single “All the Lovers” gets Better with each listen. Its anthemic hook, reminiscent of vintage Erasure and Pet Shop Boys, wafts past your ears like a summer breeze. But too much of Aphrodite is so lightweight and inconsequential that it’s liable to get whisked away and forgotten altogether. The entire album has the sonic consistency of cotton candy: It won’t exactly give you a headache, but it could leave you with a stomachache.

我花了一段时间才逐渐喜欢上Kylie Minogue打入美国市场的专辑《Fever》，在这里也可能发生同样的事情：首单《All The Lover》随着反复聆听逐渐佳境。歌曲颂歌式的hook，让人联想到复古的Erasure和Pet Shop Boys，如同夏天的微风一样吹拂过你的耳朵。但大多数《Aphrodite》的内容过于轻巧和无关紧要，它很容易被匆匆带走，置之脑后。整张专辑就感觉像棉花糖:它不会让你头疼，但可能会让你胃痛。

Aphrodite was executive-produced by Stuart Price, the man behind Madonna’s celebrated opus Confessions on an Dance Floor, and though the tracks he produced here stand out, the album is a reminder that Price hasn’t really done anything truly notable since his work with the Queen of Pop. Predictably, he continues to make subtle nods to dance hits past (“Closer” channels both Cerrone and Daft Punk), but his production style still feels cheap—and I’m not just talking about his fondness for artificial strings, exemplified on “Looking for an Angel” and “Illusion.” The slick, antiseptic quality of his songs is the total opposite of what’s required for an artist like Minogue, whose squeaky-clean voice begs to be dirtied up, not shellacked.

《Aphrodite》的执行制作人是Stuart Price，他是Madonna代表作《Confessions on an Dance Floor》的制作人。尽管他在这张专辑中制作的歌曲很突出。但这张专辑提醒人们，自从与流行天后合作后，Stuart Price并没有真正做过什么值得注意的事情。可预见的是，他将继续对过去的经典舞曲致敬（类似”Closer“受Cerrone和Daft Punk启发），但他的制作风格仍然感觉很廉价——我说的不仅仅是他对人造和弦的喜爱，《Looking for a Angel》和《Illusion》就是典型的例子。他营造出的简洁，平滑感，正是Kylie Minogu这类歌手需摒弃的，她干净清脆的声音需要被加工玷污，而不是Shellback化。