译Pitchfork评Gwen Stefani 2004年专辑《Love Angel Music Baby》（爱天使音乐宝贝）
-翻译：thesweetescape
No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani releases her first solo-- er, "collaborative"-- album Love Angel Music Baby, with assistance from Andre 3000, Dr. Dre, Eve, and the ubiquitous Linda Perry, among others.
No Doubt主唱Gwen Stefani的首张个人专辑——或者“合作”专辑——《Love Angel Music Baby》，制作阵容包括Andre 3000, Dr. Dre, Eve和无所不在的Linda Perry等合作者。
Gwen Stefani should stick to making bum flaps. Not quite a skirt, not quite a dish rag, the Stefani bum flap dangles off the guts of our divorced aunts and 12-year-old mall-slut daughters, the ones who steal Livestrong bracelets and dry-hump public schoolkids in Pac Sun dressing rooms. Bum flaps are these people's stars and stripes. Not all of us want to salute this flag, but it exists, and it gives America something else to believe in-- and it's not nearly as expensive as a valium addiction or Kaplan SAT course.
Gwen Stefani应该坚持做盖臀口袋（bum flaps），而不是做出一条裙子，更不是做出一条抹布。这块烂布吊在一群中年离异妇女的肚腩上 以及 那些12岁偷慈善机构的手镯，去商场勾引男人骗吃骗喝，在学校更衣室与其他同学干柴烈火的女孩的身上。盖臀口袋（bum flaps）是这类人的特质。尽管并不是所有人都想尊重这种服饰，但它的确给美国灌输了一种信仰——并且远没有安定药成瘾和SAT辅导的费用那么贵。
As widely predicted, 35-year old singer/fashionista Stefani has temporarily given up No Doubt to fully embrace a high-pop lifestyle with nary a pierced tongue in-cheek. The metamorphosis began with her Eve and Dr. Dre collaboration on 2001's killer single "Let Me Blow Ya Mind", and is completed here with her solo debut Love Angel Music Baby, a spineless, starfucked advertisement for her high-end clothing line.
正如大众普遍预测的那样，这位35岁的歌手/时装设计师Gwen Stefani 暂缓No Doubt的组合事业，转而高调投入鲜有尖锐的流行乐坛。这种转变在她与Eve，Dr.Dre 在2001年合作的热门单曲"Let Me Blow Ya Mind"就开始了，一直持续到她第一张单飞专辑《Love Angel Music Baby》的出炉，一张毫无骨气的为自家高端服装品牌（L.A.M.B）打广告的专辑。
Obviously, we can't expect 12 more cuts as personal or urgent as debut single "What You Waiting For", Stefani's slick self-steeling kick in the pitch-corrected plaids, and one of the best electro songs this year-- especially when the pop star openly PRs that she didn't "really see [LAMB] as a 'solo' record in the typical sense... The idea was to be open and let my ego shut up and sit over in the corner and make something great based on a concept." If Stefani wants to sacrifice her identity, that's fine, but hot Christ, she's working with everyone from Andre 3000 to the Neptunes to New Order to Dr. Dre here. So why isn't LAMB bigger, better, faster, more? Is it the scourge of 4 Non Blondes' Linda Perry, who coaxed Stefani into finishing the solo project and all but forced her back into the studio because Perry reportedly only "had a brief window of time available"? What's going on?
显然，我们不能指望专辑里收录的十二首歌都能媲美首单"What You Waiting For"的激烈又独具匠心的水准，歌曲中，Gwen游刃有余地穿梭在精彩纷呈的音调中，也是今年最佳电子舞曲之一——尤其是这位流行歌手曾公开表示：“自己并不将LAMB视作一张典型意义上的单飞专辑......初衷是敞开心扉，淡化自我，静坐在角落，尝试根据某个概念构思出不错的想法。” 如果Gwen Stefani想奉献自我，没关系，但是天哪，她跟所有人都合作了一遍，从Andre 3000到Neptunes到New Order再到Dr. Dre。所以，为什么LAMB不是一张更宏大，更优秀，更飞速的专辑呢？罪魁祸首是4 Non Blondes乐队主唱Linda Perry吗？她哄骗Gwen做单飞专辑，但又屡次逼迫Gwen重返录音室，只因自己的工作档期非常紧张？究竟发生了什么？
In fairness, one of the Andre tracks, "Bubble Pop Electric", isn't half-bad, a brave Prince-goes-Stray Cats doowop shuffle with a great hook and an Andre-as-Johnny Vulture gentleman boyfriend cameo. The track is silly and fun, and probably exactly what Stefani et al., wanted out of LAMB. Which is what makes Andre's second contribution, "Long Way to Go", so perplexing: The maudlin MLK Jr. samples and the duet's pointed appeal to interracial dating ("We've got a long way to go!/ It's beyond Martin Luthur/ Upgrade computer") feel out of place on an otherwise carefree album boasting lines like, "You know you are my treasure chest," and, "We got hydroponic love/ And we smoke it."
有一说一，由Andre 3000制作的歌曲"Bubble Pop Electric"还蛮不错的，一首异想天开的Prince风格强烈的doo-wop曳步舞曲，有着很棒的hook，其中Andre扮演男友角色Johnny Vulture。整首歌傻气又不失趣味，应该是Gwen等人真正想要在LAMB中做出的东西。而Andre在专辑里操刀的另一首歌"Long Way to Go"则令人费解：一首采样感人肺腑的马丁路德金演讲，呼吁种族平等的合唱曲（歌词写道：“We've got a long way to go!/ It's beyond Martin Luthur/ Upgrade computer”），在这张纵情声色的专辑中则显得不合时宜，像专辑其他歌词则唱道（“Luxurious”）"You know you are my treasure chest," 和"We got hydroponic love/ And we smoke it."。
And another thing about Stefani's treasure chests-- not to mention, "We climbed all the way from the bottom to the top"; the Eve- and Dre- and Tevye-powered camp-hop "Rich Girl"; "I only want to fly first class desires (you're my limousine)"; "We're luxurious like Egyptian cotton"; "If I was a wealthy girl/ I'd get me four Harajuku girls to inspire me"; the unintentionally offensive orientalist fetishism, "Now we get to lay back"; "Ch-Ching Ch-Ching-- we're loaded and we're not going to blow it"; the soulless Nellee Hooper 90s R&B; vanity affair "Luxurious"; and the rest of LAMB's zombied buy-LAMB-clothing mantras and transparent Hollywood Dream bullshit-- the Joker's free-money parade through Gotham City was a much more entertaining display of wealth, and he had Prince, not just Wendy & Lisa.
而Gwen另一首拜金歌曲——更不用说，（歌词）"We climbed all the way from the bottom to the top"的Eve，Dr.Dre,电影《屋顶上的提琴手》强势携手的坎普嘻哈歌曲“Rich Girl”。（歌曲“Luxurious”歌词）"I only want to fly first class desires (you're my limousine)"; "We're luxurious like Egyptian cotton"; （歌曲“Rich Girl”歌词）"If I was a wealthy girl/ I'd get me four Harajuku girls to inspire me"; 一些不经意间流露出的东方恋物癖，（歌曲“Luxurious”歌词） "Now we get to lay back"; "Ch-Ching Ch-Ching-- we're loaded and we're not going to blow it"; 呆板的90年代Nellee Hooper式的R&B歌曲“Luxurious”。专辑的其他歌曲则尽是时装同名品牌广告曲和毫不遮掩的好莱坞逐梦粪曲——小丑在哥谭市肆无忌惮的零元购游行是一种更有趣的炫富形式，而且他坐拥Prince，而不只是Wendy & Lisa组合。
Elsewhere on LAMB, the Neptunes shit out a Queen pastiche called "Hollaback Girl", which has about as much club potential as a 13-year old with a milk moustache and his dad's ID. For "The Real Thing", co-producers and co-players New Order unbizarrify, unlove, and untriangulate "Bizarre Love Triangle" just enough that the millions of people who heard about New Order on Karaoke Revolution won't notice the similarities right away. Seriously, anyone remotely involved with "The Real Thing" should find a stray dog and let it bite him.
专辑其他地方，the Neptunes仿造Queen乐队风格的歌曲“Hollaback Girl”，与留着牛奶胡子，偷拿他爸身份证的13岁顽童有着相似的俱乐部潜力。而歌曲"The Real Thing"是一首既不怪诞，更冰冷和简化版的New Order歌曲"Bizarre Love Triangle"，恰到好处地让数百万人在唱卡拉OK时不会立马察觉到两首歌的雷同之处。讲真，每个参与做出 "The Real Thing"的人都值得被流浪狗围追堵截。
So, final tally: LAMB has one mega-hit, one okay song, three stillborns, and seven full-fledged embarrassments. For Stefani, fashion has officially come first; to her credit, these songs are the slickest, shiniest, bum-flappiest failures of the year.
所以最终结论是：专辑LAMB有一首超级热单，一首还可以的歌，三首不尽人意的歌，以及其余七首彻头彻尾的尴尬过场曲。对Gwen Stefani来说，时尚绝对是第一位；也多亏了Gwen，这些歌是本年度最技艺精湛，最光彩，最不个性的失败作品。
