【译】叉婊Pitchfork评Christina Aguilera 2018年专辑《Liberation》（解放）

翻译：Nomanlandever

The pop survivor shows off her powerhouse voice, dabbles in try-hard slang, and takes tentative steps toward creative rebirth on her first album since 2012.

在她2012年以来的首张专辑中，这位流行歌手展现了她强势的嗓音，尝试了一些时髦事物，并向创造性的重生迈出了试探性的一步。

The 2010s have been an uncertain decade for Christina Aguilera. The first ten years of her career saw her shapeshift from Delia’s catalog realness to her provocative “Xtina” persona to drama-club queen bee and back. But she kicked off the current decade by covering Marilyn Monroe andreinterpreting Marilyn Manson for Burlesque, one of the campiest pop-star vehicles this side of Glitter. Her most recent album, 2012’sLotus, was a non-starter featuring two of her fellow coaches of “The Voice,” Cee-Lo Green (pre-date rape allegations) and Blake Shelton. (She’d already reached No. 1 with the fourth member of their inaugural cohort, Adam Levine, thanks to her guest appearance onMaroon 5’s 2010 hit “Moves Like Jagger.”) Lotus was supposed to be a rebirth, but it faltered. Entertainment Weekly called its first-week sales “the sad trombone at the end of [Aguilera’s] comeback.”

对Christina Aguilera来说，这是个不确定的十年，她职业生涯的第一个十年见证了她的转变，从Delia的真实纯朴到嚣张跋扈的“Xtina”，到撕逼俱乐部的皇后，再到现在。她通过翻唱玛丽莲梦露的歌和在电影《Burlesque》中重新演绎玛丽莲梦露一角拉开了这个十年的序幕。2012发行的专辑《Lotus》商业成绩并不成功，还是在有两位同期好声音导师助阵的情况下，Cee-Lo Green（被指控强奸前）和Blake Shelton。多亏第四位导师Adam Levine，她在2010年热单《Moves Like Jagger》的客串为她赢得一首冠单，《Lotus》本应获得新生，但它失败了。《娱乐周刊》称其首周销量是“Christina回归后令人悲叹的长号”。

The rollout of her eighth album, Liberation, suggests she’s done selling anything that doesn’t fit into her true vision of herself: She posed without makeup on the cover of Paper magazine, and her cover art is similarly stripped down. And the album is, at the very least, a reminder that—holy shit—she can sing. As contemporary radio continues to favor lighter vocal performances from artists likeHalsey and Charlie Puth, Aguilera’s powerhouse voice remains the nucleus of her sound, even when she’s tinkering with trap tropes and try-hard slang.

她的第八张录音室专辑《Liberation》的推出表明，她已经抛弃了一切不符合她“真我”的事物。她在《Paper》杂志的封面的素颜写真，封面艺术同样是无衣物遮掩的。而这张专辑，至少提醒了我们——天啊——她还很会唱。随着如今的当代电台更青睐像一些像Halsey，Charlie Puth此类歌唱性较弱的歌手，但Christina强大的嗓音仍然是她音乐的核心，尽管她也努力说潮流用语，玩trap之类的东西。

Are those moments a total bummer? Absolutely. “Pipe” includes lyrics like, “I just left a lituation popping by the High Line/Walked in, no list, fuck a go sign,” and, “Got a couple secrets that I'd really love to see if you could keep/Damn, boy, you remind me of my Jeep.” In 2018, “lituation” is a word for children and the cast of “Jersey Shore,” and R. Kelly references belong only in a trash compactor. The album’s Kanye West-produced lead single, “Accelerate,” is equally unconvincing; crackly vocals from the usually hefty-voiced Ty Dolla $ign do it no favors.

那些时刻是完全心灰意冷的吗?绝对的。歌曲《Pipe》的歌词像 “I just left a lituation popping by the High Line/Walked in, no list, fuck a go sign,” 和 “Got a couple secrets that I'd really love to see if you could keep/Damn, boy, you remind me of my Jeep.” 在2018年，litation是一个针对儿童和《泽西海岸》(Jersey Shore)全体演员的词语，和对R. Kelly的引用只能说是属于垃圾压缩机里的。这张专辑由Kanye West制作的主打单曲《Accelerate》同样没有说服力;通常Ty Dolla $ign浑厚且嘶哑的声音对这首歌没起什么作用。

Aguilera’s 2010 album, Bionic, featured cutting-edge singles like “Woohoo”—an ode to oral sex featuring Nicki Minaj—and “Elastic Love,” which was co-written by guest vocalist M.I.A. (And this was nearly two years before Madonna enlisted both Minaj and Maya for “Gimme All Your Luvin’.”) The sound of Bionic was perhaps too forward-thinking, a risk that could have reaped the rewards of poptimism if the album had only been released a few years later.Liberation isn’t completely devoid of progressive moments: “Like I Do” is one spot where contemporary pop fare suits Aguilera. D.C. rapper GoldLink, who had his first real crossover hit with last year’s “Crew,” delivers a verse that confirms her continued relevance in hip-hop; his reference to her 1999 debut single, “Genie in a Bottle,” is a tidy hat-tip to the double meaning of Aguilera singing a can’t-do-it-like-me track.

Christina Aguilera的2010年专辑《Bionic》，收录了顶级单曲《Woohoo》——一首feat.Nicki Minaj的口交颂歌——和有嘉宾歌手M.I.A参与谱写的《Elastic Love》（这比Madonna在《Gimme All Your Luvin’》中召集出Nicki和Maya两位歌手先前了几乎两年）。《Bionic》的音乐也许过于超前，如果这张专辑在几年后才发行，这种冒险可能会收获乐观主义的回报。《Liberation》并非完全没有进步的时刻：《Like I Do》是当代流行音乐适合Christina Aguilera的地方。华盛顿说唱歌手GoldLink在去年的歌曲《Crew》中首次真正走红，其中一段歌词证实了她在嘻哈音乐中的地位;他对Christina Aguilera出道首单《Genie in a Bottle》的引用，这是对Christina Aguilera演唱“不能像我一样做”这首歌双重含义的一次巧妙致敬。

And most people can’t. The ballad “Deserve” is confessional and explicit—“Sometimes I don't think I deserve you/So I say some fucked-up shit just to hurt you,” she sings—resulting in one of her strongest showings on the album. Early interlude “Searching for Maria” finds Aguilera singing operatic a cappella while invoking “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” from The Sound of Music, followed by a full track called “Maria” (produced by West and Hudson Mohawke) that Aguilera says is about finding her true self. “[It’s] about feeling as if I've gotten really far removed from myself and unable to feel good about looking in the mirror, because I don't feel like I'm connected with my truth,” she told Paper.

大多数人都做不到。抒情曲《Deserve》是自白和直截了当的——“Sometimes I don't think I deserve you/So I say some fucked-up shit just to hurt you,” 她唱道——成就了专辑中最有力的表现之一。专辑初期插曲《Searching for Maria》中，Christina Aguilera边唱着歌剧式的阿卡贝拉边做法召唤着出自《音乐之声》电影中的 “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? ”，紧接着是首完整的歌曲《Maria》（由Kanye West和Hudson Mohawke制作），Christina Aguilera说这首歌是讲找到真实的自己。“这首歌是讲感觉自己与真我渐行渐远，看向镜中的自我时惴惴不安，因为不能感受到自己与真相共存，”她在《Paper》杂志采访中说道。

“Maria” also marks the beginning of a triptych of album highlights. “Sick of Sittin’” has writing and production credits from Anderson .Paak and wouldn’t be out of place in his personal catalog (save for the lyric, “It’s good pay, but it’s slavery,” which sounds a little tone-deaf in context). “Fall in Line,” a duet with Demi Lovato, is a confidence booster without melodrama. The singers proclaim their refusal to be silenced while screwed chants from an ersatz drill sergeant instruct them, “Left two, three, right, two, three/Shut your mouth, stick your ass out for me.” These are sturdy moments on an album that feels less like an end in itself than a promising first step toward a genuine pop rebirth—moments that are strong enough to inspire hope for Aguilera’s own The Velvet Rope or, at least, My Love Is Your Love. She has certainly still got the range.

《Maria》也标志着专辑亮点三联曲的开始，《Sick of Sittin’》谱写和制作名单中有Anderson .Paak的身影，当作他自己的歌也没什么不妥（除了歌词:It’s good pay, but it’s slavery,”在整首歌中听起来不和谐）。《Fall In Line》，与Demi Lovato的合唱曲，是一首没有戏剧性情节的自信助威曲。她们表示拒绝沉默，而一个假冒的教官却在反复指使她们念诵着:“Left two, three, right, two, three/Shut your mouth, stick your ass out for me.” 这张专辑中，这些坚定的时刻与其说是终结，不如说是迈向真正流行音乐重生的第一步——这些时刻足够强大，足以激发我们对Christina Aguilera做出自己的《The Velvet Rope》或至少是《My Love Is Your Love》的期待。她肯定还有这个潜力。