【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评Taylor Swift 2014年专辑《1989》

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：Aurora Chen

校对：Ryan-Chopin

推送：Lynn Liu

If there’s one thing Taylor Swift wants you to know about her, it is that she once felt deeply uncool. Even as a superstar with best-selling albums, stadium tours, and high-profile friends, she said in 2014 that she had never felt “edgy, cool, or sexy.” Her first four albums hinge on that feeling, full of vivid, sprawling documents of failed romances that left her gasping for air, wondering how to be someone her lovers would miss. She was almost always the one who was in pain, the outsider, the underdog.

如果有一件事Taylor Swift想让你了解的话，那就是她曾觉得自己很不酷。即使作为一个拥有畅销专辑、经历过大型体育场巡演并有着高知名度朋友的超级巨星，她仍曾在2014年表示，她觉得自己一点都不“前卫，酷或者是性感。”她的前四张专辑就是依据这种感觉而创作的。清晰生动而杂乱无章的失败恋情压得她喘不过气来，她思索着如何才能成为她男友真正心心念念着的人。在感情中，她几乎总是那个痛苦着的人，局外人，受伤的人。

That changed with 1989. Its predecessor, Red, was the pinnacle of diaristic specificity, an album that blew up the tiny intimate details of her romances into public eulogies. The media surrounding that album critiqued Swift as clingy, boy-obsessed, and vindictive. 1989 is in part Swift’s response to the negative, often sexist, press she’d received. On the album, Swift loses her naïveté, dons a sense of unfazed nonchalance, and learns to navigate a world that underappreciated her lyricism and shamed her for dating too many men. She has said that she would work in marketing if she didn’t work in music but, really, she has already been doing both simultaneously and spectacularly.

转变始于专辑《1989》。其前一张专辑是《Red（红）》，是展现其日记体的巅峰之作，此张专辑将她身边微小私密的浪漫细节变成了公开的歌词。有媒体因此就这张专辑而批评Taylor是一个缠人，迷恋爱情且报复心强的人。而《1989》中则有一部分歌曲是Taylor对她所收到的那些负面的、而且经常是批评她性别歧视报道的反击。在这张专辑中，Taylor褪去了她的天真浪漫，带着一种不受干扰的漠不关心，学着反击一个低估她作品并且因她与太多男人约会而羞辱她的世界。她曾说过，如果她没有成为一名歌手，那么她会从事市场营销方面的工作，但实际上，不知不觉间她已经同时做了这两件事，而且非常出色。

For those who might openly cry while listening to Red, the first listen of 1989 stings of indifference. The album, named after the year she was born, treats heartbreak as if observing a painting on a wall, rather than a feeling she desperately needs to articulate. Grandiose memories of 2 a.m. fights and dancing in refrigerator light are replaced with glossy odes to big cities and weekend flings. Where liner notes of previous albums offered hyper-specific hints about each song’s subject, these tell the story of a generic on-again off-again romance. At the time, Swift temporarily disavowed dating to instead celebrate the power of female friendship and flaunt her celebrity “girl squad” with extravagant 4th of July parties and a different guest appearance every night of her tour. Yet 1989 is the album that feels least like spending quality time with your best friends.

对于那些听到《Red》时可能会当场大哭的人来说，听到《1989》却会因其中的无动于衷而内心刺痛。这张专辑以她的出生年份而命名，展现出她对待失恋于心碎就好像只是旁观一幅墙上的画，而不是她想要迫切释放的一种情感。“凌晨2点，在冰箱灯光照射下打架和跳舞”（“All Too Well的著名歌词”）的不切实回忆被“大城市的光彩浮华以及周末的喧嚣”所取代。以往专辑歌词本上的说明具体介绍了每首歌的主题，而这次的文字则讲述了通俗而反复的爱情故事。但当时，Taylor否认自己有恋情，而是表示此张专辑是为庆祝女性间友谊的力量，骄傲地夸耀自己名流荟萃的“女队”及其独立日的奢侈派对，当时每晚都有不同嘉宾在她的巡演中出场。但是实际上《1989》却并不像是一张展现与最好的朋友共度美好时光的专辑。

Still, there’s an allure to 1989’s escapism. Now the dramas of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (Fearless’ “Love Story”) or 1945 Americana (Red’s “Starlight”) come with lower stakes; her new fantasy world allows for broken hearts to be stored away safely in a drawer. The polished, propulsive synth-pop of album highlight “Style” showcases it best, with lyrics that celebrate a lustful relationship Between people whose most revealing traits are that they would look good together on a movie poster. Is it about a real experience, or is it fiction? “Blank Space” weaponizes Swift’s newfound romantic skepticism: In the accompanying music video, an aristocratic romance deteriorates catastrophically, poisoned by her jealousy and need to control her partner. On Speak Now’s “Dear John,” she’d lamented being added to a lover’s “long list of traitors who don’t understand.” Here, she proudly flaunts her own “long list of ex-lovers” who think she’s crazy, adding the sound of a clicking pen to heighten the gleeful melodrama. She looks at the camera almost as much as she does her lover, warning us that she knows what we think of her and she doesn’t care.

然而，专辑《1989》对现实的逃避别具魅力。而如今，专辑里Shakespeare（莎士比亚）戏剧“Romeo & Juliet（罗密欧与朱丽叶）”（即对应专辑《Fearless》（放手去爱）里的单曲“Love Story（爱情故事）”）或者是1945年的美国风格（对应于专辑《Red》里的单曲“Starlight(星光)”）这种类戏剧成分的占比在减小;她全新的幻想世界使她能将破碎的心安放在思绪深处。这张制作精良，综合流行风格的专辑将“格调与个性”展现得淋漓尽致，歌词揭示了男男女女之间的情欲关系，而他们最显著的特点就是个个在表面上看起来都是人模狗样的。这究竟是真实的经历，还是只是虚构呢？“Blank Space（空白）”里的Taylor以全新的爱情怀疑主义为武器：在该单曲的MV中，贵族式的爱情不可挽回地破灭了，她的嫉妒加剧了两人的离心，并展现出强烈的占有欲，想要控制伴侣的言行举止。在专辑《Speak Now（爱的告白）》里的单曲“Dear John（亲爱的约翰）”中，她哀叹着自己的一个前男友把自己列到“一长串无可理喻的背叛者名单中”。这时，她也自豪地炫耀她自己的“前男友名单”（那些认为她简直疯了的前男友们），她在曲中加入按笔的声响以增强幸灾乐祸的情节性。正如她的前男友们一样，她直视着镜头，告诫我们她知道我们怎么想她，然而她完全不在乎。

Though Swift’s interest in pop was evident on songs like Red’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” and Speak Now’s “Better Than Revenge,” 1989 was the first time an entire Swift album could exist as party music without slow-burning heartache. These were still love songs, so Swift’s familiar themes peak through—dismissal of doubters, pleas to remember a romance favorably after it ends, and heavy use of one of her favorite words, “forever.” Still, the glitzy sound and ethos provided an entry point for new listeners and a chance for old ones to come up for air, to recognize that everything doesn’t always have to be so serious. It can be just as freeing to shrug in the face of heartache as it is to spell out exactly why and how you were hurt.

其实Taylor对流行音乐的倾向在专辑《Red》中的“I Knew You Were Trouble（我知道你是大麻烦）”和专辑《Speak Now》的“Better Than Revenge（不如报复）”等歌中已经得到了很明显的体现，但《1989》这张专辑是Taylor史无前例将整张专辑都填充着纵情欢乐和不复以往难熬的心痛。专辑里的这些歌依旧是情歌，因此这些熟悉的爱情主题在摒弃人们的怀疑后得到了淋漓尽致地展现，期望能在一段恋情结束后还能记住那份温暖和浪漫，并且她在这张专辑中大量重复地使用她最喜欢的一个词“永远”。尽管如此，悦耳动听的声音以及极富魅力的格调吸引了喜欢电子乐的新听众，也给喜欢乡村乐的老粉们适应的机会，让听众们也认识到任何事都没什么大不了。心痛时可以洒脱地耸耸肩，因为重点是你得清楚地明白你为何以及是如何受到伤害的。

“New Romantics,” a surging, euphoric song from the deluxe version of the album that was released as a final single, does this particularly well. Swift’s voice is processed and couched in thrilling yelps and sighs, crunchy synth, and galloping drums. After a certain amount of pain, sometimes your best defense is to channel the burning energy of your big hopes and desires into a night of uninhibited hedonism.

“New Romantics（新浪漫主义）”是豪华版专辑中的一首热烈而欢快的歌，作为专辑中最后一首单曲发行，这是一首特别好的歌。Taylor的嗓音在歌中处理成了扣人心弦的叫喊声和叹息声，再伴以爽脆的合成音和奔腾的鼓声。在经历一些的苦难过后，有时候你最好的抵抗方式便是把源自你浓烈希望和欲望的灼热情感发泄到一晚上无拘无束的享乐与狂欢中去。

On Speak Now’s “Mean,” Swift told a critic that one day she would be “living in a big ol’ city,” while he’d never be anything but a washed-up hater. On 1989’s opener “Welcome to New York,” she makes good on that promise. She was already famous when she wrote “Mean,” of course, but now she sounded like she was “big enough so you can’t hit me.” The big ol’ city was imaginary; but on 1989, Swift writes and inhabits a fully-realized fantasy of self-reliance, confidence, and ensuing pleasure. Her music was no longer just a diary entry. You can almost hear her winking on every track.

当提到《Speak Now》中的单曲“Mean（卑鄙）”时，Taylor对一位音乐评论家说，总有一天她会“住在一个古老大都市”，而他除了一个失败的黑子之外什么都不是。在专辑《1989》的首支单曲“Welcome to New York”（欢迎来到纽约）中，她达成了这一承诺。当然其实她创作“Mean”时，她就已经很有名了。但是如今她真的达到了像她在歌中唱的那样“足够强大，因此你无法击败我”。歌中的大城市可能是想象中的; 但是在专辑《1989》中，Taylor成功写出来并过上了她真正实现且自立自强、信心满满、幸福快乐的理想生活。她的音乐不再只是对其日记的展露。在这张专辑中你更能感觉到，她几乎透着每支单曲对着听众们眨着眼，使着眼色。