搬运译Pitchfork评 Lizzo 2019年专辑《Cuz I Love You》

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：Lynn Liu

校正：Ryan-Chopin

排版：Ryan-Chopin

The shiny soul-pop of Lizzo’s major label debut is something of a thesis on internalized and externalized confidence—so much so that the music can feel like a means to a greater end.

Lizzo在其唱片公司发行的首张专辑中赋予了闪亮的灵魂流行乐，在某种程度上是对内化和外化信心的一种论述——且如此之多，以至于其中的音乐听起来像是一种宏大的尾声。

The precise moment of Lizzo’s transformation has been viewed nearly 200,000 times. In 2014, the same year she released her frenzied rap debut Lizzobangers, the rapper-singer-flautist participated in a web series called The What’s Underneath Project. In her episode, Lizzo sits on a stool before a brick wall and speaks warmly about the evolution of her self-image while shedding her clothing one piece at a time. First goes a plaid shirt, then a pair of retro Jordans, and a beanie, until she’s wearing just a bra and panties. Makeup mostly scrubbed and a teeny weeny afro forming a halo around her face, she is finally, fully herself. This literal disrobing, she has said, prompted an unexpected revelation that would go on to shape her life and her art.

Lizzo的转型时刻大概已经被浏览200,000次了，2014年，也就是她疯狂推出自己的说唱处女作《Lizzobangers》的那一年，这位说唱歌手兼长笛手参加了一个名为“What’s under Project”的网络系列节目。在这一集中，Lizzo坐在一堵砖墙前的凳子上，一边热情地谈论着她自我形象的演变，一边一件件地脱掉衣服。首先是格子衫，然后是一双复古的乔丹鞋，再是一顶无檐小帽，最后她只剩下了内衣和内裤。她脸上大部分的妆容都卸掉了，一个小小的非洲式发型绕着她的脸形成了一个光环，最后，她终于完全恢复了本真。

That experience inspired her to write “My Skin,” the breakthrough rap-ballad from her 2015 album Big Grrrl Small World. In an accompanying essay, she described the song as “a summoning of bodies: all shapes, sizes, and shades to unite in their pride, and wear their skin like the gift it is.” Since then, she has sharpened that sensibility, becoming a tireless cheerleader for herself and for millions of people she’ll never know. Cuz I Love You, her first full-length on Atlantic, is something of a thesis on internalized and externalized confidence—so much so that the music can feel like a means to a greater end. The rollout for the album, featuring magazine covers and late-night talk show appearances, has been one extremely long yaaaaaaas, centering her welcome approach to body-positivity and self-love as much the soaring mid-chorus notes of the single “Juice” and her uncanny ability to play a flute while twerking.

这段经历启发她创作了“My Skin”，这是她2015年专辑《Big Grrrl Small World》中突破性的说唱歌曲。在随附的一篇文章中，她将这首歌描述为“对身体的召唤:所有的身材、尺码和肤色都融合在他们的骄傲之中，将自身的肤色当做礼物来穿戴。”从那以后，她的这种感觉越发强烈，她化身为那永不知疲倦的啦啦队长，为自己以及数百万素不相识的人代言。《Cuz I Love You》是她在Atlantic厂牌第一张完整专辑，它在某种程度上是关于对内化和外化信心的一种论述——其如此之多，以至于其中的音乐听起来像是一种更伟大的结束。这张专辑的首次亮相中，我们能看到杂志封面的外壳，听到类似深夜脱口秀风格的曲目，它的推出是一个极其漫长的过程，这张专辑展示了她对身材的自信和自爱的欢迎态度，以及单曲“Juice”中高涨的合唱音符，我们也能从中看到她边跳电臀舞边吹长笛的神奇技能。

Lizzo is clearly a talent. On songs like the soul-tinged “Cuz I Love You” and the naming-and-shaming “Jerome,” she bellows from somewhere deep within, her voice so powerful that it’s a surprise to learn she spent much of her life ashamed by it. Her pledge to be “ARETHA FRANKLIN FOR THE 2018 GENERATION” is evident, if not quite actualized; this generation’s Natasha Bedingfield is maybe more accurate. Songs like “Juice” or the equally upbeat “Soulmate” have enough sheen and universality to stand in for Bedingfield’s mid-aughts empowerment anthem “Unwritten” in any given rom-com or yogurt commercial. (Lizzo faced a minor scandal last year when she allowed one of her songs to be used in a campaign for Weight Watchers. Fans were critical of the decision because WW, despite a recent rebrand to health and wellness, reinforces diet culture, putting it fundamentally at odds with interpretations of Lizzo’s fat-positive principles. She eventually apologized.)

Lizzo显然是个天才。在带有灵魂色彩的“Cuz I Love You”和耻于命名的“Jerome”中，她发自内心地呼喊着，她的声音如此富有穿透力，以至于当她得知自己一生中的大部分时间都为此感到羞耻时，她感到很惊讶。她的“2018年这一代的艾瑞莎·富兰克林”(ARETHA FRANKLIN FOR THE 2018 GENERATION)誓言即使没有完全实现，也是显而易见的，说她是这一代人的娜塔莎·贝丁菲尔德(Natasha Bedingfield)或许更准确。“Juice”或同样具有乐观色彩的“Soulmate”等歌曲拥有足够的光泽感，也更加大众化，足以在任何一部浪漫喜剧或酸奶广告中代替Bedingfield的“Unwritten”。(去年，Lizzo因允许自己的一首歌被用于Weight Watchers的宣传活动而面临一桩小丑闻。粉丝们对这一决定持批评态度，因为尽管WW最近重新建立了健康和养生的品牌，但它强化了节食/饮食文化，从根本上违背了Lizzo以胖为美的原则，她最终为此道歉。)

Despite her obvious skill and charisma, some of the album’s 11 songs are burdened with overwrought production, awkward turns of phrase, and ham-handed rapping. It’s hard to imagine her earning a spot in the pantheon of great, or even good, rappers when the opening lines of “Like A Girl” have the energy of an “SNL” sketch: “Woke up feeling like I just might run for president/Even if there ain’t no precedent/Switching up the messaging/I’m about to add a little estrogen.” Later, alongside perpetually cool labelmate Gucci Mane on “Exactly How I Feel,” echoes of the Black Eyed Peas’ triumphant, if soulless, stadium-pop ring hollow. There are highlights throughout—nearly every song has multiple captivating hooks—but the album’s peak comes at its end, with “Lingerie,” the sexy closer that is essentially orgasm-as-song. It is tongue-in-cheek, but somehow the most sincere Lizzo we hear.

尽管她有显著的技巧和魅力，这张专辑的11首歌曲中有一些听起来像是在过度劳累中制作的，富含尴尬的措辞和笨拙说唱。很难想象她的收入已足以让她前脚迈入伟大的万神殿中,她作为说唱歌手的收入水平是极高的,“Like A Girl”的开场白有一种描述“SNL”的能量:“Woke up feeling like I just might run for president/Even if there ain’t no precedent/Switching up the messaging/I’m about to add a little estrogen.（醒来后感觉像是我可能竞选总统/即使不是没有先例/切换消息/我还要再来点雌性激素。）后来，她与炫酷的同公司的Gucci Mane一起合作了“Just How I Feel”一曲，像是在对黑眼豆豆功成名就的回响。每首歌都有亮点——几乎每首歌都有多个迷人的之处——但这张专辑的高潮是在“Lingerie”这首歌的结尾之处。这首歌听起来像是在半开玩笑，但不知为何，我们听到的却是最真诚的Lizzo。

She joins the proposition for genreless music at an interesting time, with artists as varied as Halsey and BTS and Khalid confirming the inevitability of such a future. “I’m the genre. My voice is the genre,” Lizzo said in a recent interview. And that’s technically true; she is what ties together the fun, anti-gravity pop of “Tempo,” featuring an inventive, compelling verse from Missy Elliott, and the Pussy-hat optimism of “Better In Color.” But really, much of Cuz I Love You sounds like an improvement on any given major-label writing session. “Soulmate,” for example, plays like it could just as easily, if more cloyingly, be performed by someone like Meghan Trainor. (Lizzo and Trainor share a producer in Ricky Reed.)

她在一个有趣的时间点加入了无流派的音乐主张，像Halsey、BTS和Khalid这样的艺术家证实了这种趋势的必然性。“我就是风格，我的声音自成一派”，Lizzo在最近的一次采访中说到。这在技术层面上来说是无口厚非的，正是她把与Missy Elliott 合作的单曲“Tempo”中那些有趣的、反重力的流行元素与“Better In Color”中象征女性（ 译者注：原文为“Pussy Hat”，“Pussy Hat”带有两个尖尖角，象征女性的双腿自己，而整个帽子就是女性生理器官的符号化。[解释源于豆瓣]）的乐观主义联系在了一起。但说真的，《Cuz I Love You》的大部分歌曲像是主流厂牌的创作者们对他们已有作品进行的再加工一样。例如，“Soulmate”似乎很容易就能被演绎出来，更倒胃口的是，像Meghan Trainor这样的人能够轻松地演唱这些歌。(Lizzo和Meghan Trainor的制作人同为Ricky Reed。)

In a piercing essay last month about the value of identity politics, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams wrote of recent “demographic and technological changes” that have “[bolstered] demands for inclusion and raising expectations in communities that had long been conditioned to accept a slow pace of change.” She continued: “These changes have encouraged activists and political challengers to make demands with a high level of specificity—to take the identities that dominant groups have used to oppress them and convert them into tools of democratic justice.” Of course, Abrams was focused on the activism galvanized by marginalization.

上个月，前乔治亚州州长候选人Stacey Abrams在一篇关于身份政治价值的尖锐文章中，提到了最近的“人口和技术变化”，这些变化“(增强了)对包容的需求，并提高了长期习惯接受对变化缓慢的社区的期望”。她接着说:“这些变化鼓励积极分子和政治挑战者提出更高层次的具体要求——把占主导地位的群体用来压迫他们，并将他们的身份转化为民主正义的工具。”当然，Abrams关注的是边缘化引发的激进主义。

But the point is universal, even if the stakes are lower outside the realm of electoral politics. A similar phenomenon has clearly manifested in arts and culture, and in music in particular. An artist’s identity and how it is narrativized are by necessity inextricable from their work, making the task of assessing an album’s merit increasingly layered and complex. In fact, Lizzo does have a genre, something like empowerment-core, and she offers songs for an astonishing array of demographics: thick women, independent women, women in general, anyone struggling with body image, people who are single, people who wish to become single, etc. Lizzo’s music performs an important social function. The sound might disappoint, but there will be people moved to transformations of their own thanks to her songs. And that’s important, too.

但关键是普遍性，即使在选举政治之外的风险较低。类似的现象在艺术和文化中也能体现，特别是在音乐中有明显的体现。艺术家的身份及其叙事方式必然与他们的作品密不可分，这使得某张专辑的评价变得越来越分层和复杂。事实上，Lizzo确实有自己的风格，比如以赋权为音乐核心，她为一大堆惊人的人口统计数据创作相关歌曲:胖女人，独立女人，一般的女人，任何与身材作斗争的人，单身的人，渴望单身的人……Lizzo的音乐有着很重的社会功能。她的音乐可能会让人失望，但也会有人因为她的音乐而改变自己，这一点也很重要。