搬运译The Pitch：Pitchfork文章《Jack Antonoff, Polarizing Nice Guy》

搬运自：网易云音乐专栏【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

翻译：Beans_Beans 

The go-to collaborator for some of pop’s favorite heroines struggles from having his cake and eating it too.

作为当今流行音乐界最受欢迎的艺术家们的首选合作者，在享受分得属于他的蛋糕的同时显然也挣扎其中。

For a certain kind of pop fan, it has been very difficult to avoid Jack Antonoff in 2021. In March, the songwriter and producer was a wide-eyed player in Taylor Swift’s woodsy Grammys performance and took home an award for his work on the star’s 2020 record folklore. Then came Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club and St. Vincent’s Daddy’s Home, both featuring Antonoff’s studio handiwork. He helped Clairo conjure Harry Nilsson vibes on her sophomore album and got beachy with Lorde for her upcoming Solar Power. He’s even there when he’s not: in early July, Antonoff, Swift, and St. Vincent—all “Cruel Summer” co-writers—received retroactive credits on Olivia Rodrigo’s hit “deja vu.” To top it off, Antonoff has been promoting Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, the new album from his glorified Springsteen tribute project, Bleachers, complete with a skronking Tonight Show set. But the moment that made me hiss “enough!” under my breath came with the announcement that he had worked on Diana Ross’ surprise comeback record, Thank You. The guy who once literally brought his childhood bedroom on tour as a badge of underdog status has now collaborated with the most iconic diva of all time.

对于绝大部分流行乐迷来说，2021年貌似已经很难再与  Jack Antonoff 撇开关系了。今年3月，这位词曲作者和制作人在 Taylor Swift 一场身处丛林的格莱美表演中大放异彩，并因其在 Taylor 2020年发行的专辑《folklore》中的杰出贡献而拿下奖项。随即发行的 Lana Del Rey 的《Chemtrails Over the Country Club》和 St. Vincent 的《Daddy’s Home》，都出自 Antonoff 之手。在这之后他帮助 Clairo 在她的第二张专辑中营造出类似 Harry Nilsson 的奇妙意境，并与 Lorde 一起为她即将发行的《Solar Power》赋予了热情洋溢的海滩风情。即使他并未参与，他的身影依旧存在：7月初，Antonoff, Swift 以及 St. Vincent——Swift 19年作品 “Cruel Summer” 的所有主创——被追加为乐坛新星 Olivia Rodrigo 的热门歌曲 “deja vu” 的创作人。除此之外，Antonoff 还一直在宣传《Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night》——这张他以 Bleachers 这一个人项目的名义向 Bruce Springsteen 致敬的新专辑，并在 Tonight Show 上为先行单曲做了精彩的演出。但是在这之后，让我暗暗嘶吼“够了！”的最后一根稻草是他宣布将作为 Diana Ross 的惊喜回归专辑《Thank You》的制作人之一。这个曾经把他的童年卧室带到巡回演出中的小透明，如今能与有史以来最具代表性的乐坛天后合作了。

In the mid-to-late 2010s, Antonoff’s initial production style—ecstatic ’80s revivalism full of sparkling synths, massive drums, and big ol’ choruses—similarly felt like it was everywhere, though he was technically working less. As a songwriter, he was the guy you called to help capture big feelings, like the electrifying thrill of a budding romance, squiggly dancefloor euphoria haunted by a looming comedown, or a longing so seismic that it gives the San Andreas fault line a run for its money. But lately, many of Antonoff’s regulars have moved away from maximalism in favor of more subdued, insular tunes. Maybe it’s a logical progression or simply a sign of the times: When COVID-19 brought the music industry to a standstill, Swift used the time to craft two intimate, spiritually woodsy records, while Clairo literally retreated to the mountains for her modest-sounding Sling; both approaches led to more organic production styles. Lorde’s recent singles, “Solar Power” and “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” aim for “sexy, playful, feral, and free” (her words) but seem natural to the point of sanded down and lacking some idiosyncratic sparkle; the melodies on “Stoned at the Nail Salon” remind some of recent Lana Del Rey ballads, a woman’s voice against a backdrop of barely-there guitars that eventually bloom into expansive choruses.

在2010年代中后期，Antonoff 最初的制作风格——以晶莹闪烁的合成器、搭配轰鸣的鼓和抓耳的副歌为代表的八十年代复古兴潮——感觉无处不在，尽管在技术层面他并未为此付诸多少艰辛。作为一个词曲作家，他便是那个被称为“帮助捕捉关键情感”的人，比如一段刚刚萌芽的浪漫带来的电光火石般的激情、被临近崩溃的情愫所烦扰而奔涌在舞池中的快感，或是一种强烈到足以让圣安德烈亚斯断层都为之震颤的渴望。但最近，Antonoff 的许多老友已经不再追求极致主义，转而青睐更为低调、柔和，更闭塞的曲调。也许这是一个合乎逻辑的进程，或是作为一个时代标志：当 COVID-19 使音乐产业停滞不前时，Swift 利用这段时间制作了两张双生、充斥着仅存在于丛林深处灵性的专辑；而 Clairo 则真的退居山林，创造了她那温和感人的《Sling》，这两支途径都通向了更加有机的制作风格。Lorde 的最新单曲 “Solar Power” 和 “Stoned at the Nail Salon”，旨在“性感、俏皮、野性和自由”（本人原话）中寻求闪光点，但似乎自然到了刻意为之的地步，而缺少了她独有的特异；“Stoned at the Nail Salon” 的旋律让人想起近来 Lana Del Rey 笔下的民谣，女声在隐约的吉他背景下，最终绽放出激情洋溢的副歌。

Antonoff’s perceived grip over the introspective pop girlies has given birth to many memes at this point—the one that jokingly asks if he produced Joni Mitchell’s opus Blue is evidence enough for how often he is working on a certain type of album. Even Courtney Love got in on the action, reposting a meme that likened Antonoff to a shopper browsing for new ideas on comically empty shelves. The creeping sentiment online about our favorite pop stars’ favorite producer is that he’s annoyingly, inescapably, maddeningly…. Everywhere. And that, as the designated steward of Tasteful Pop, maybe his omnipresence has flattened the sound of that niche between mainstream pop and indie music.

Antonoff 被认为掌控了那些内省的流行女孩们的音乐创作，在这一点上已经产生了许多梗——甚至有人开玩笑地问他是否制作了 Joni Mitchell 的大作 “Blue”，这足以证明他多么频繁地在制作某一类型的专辑。甚至 Courtney Love 也参与进来——她转发了其中之一，把 Antonoff 比作一个在空空如也的货架上选购新想法的小丑。关于这一我们最喜欢的流行歌星们最喜欢的制作人，网上流传着这样一种看法：他令人讨厌、却无从避免、令人恼火……无处不在。而且，他作为“有品位的流行音乐”的代表，也许他的无所不在已经使主流流行音乐和独立音乐之间的那个界限渐渐磨平。

It’s possible that Antonoff’s constant presence feels especially irksome because of our own aspirational wants for the music industry—wouldn’t it be nice if some of the great female songwriters of our time were produced by women as well? Fans are right to wonder why there aren’t more female producers working in the highest echelons of pop and indie music, though it isn’t a particularly new concern. A USC Annenberg study on inclusion in the music industry found that in 2020, out of 198 producers credited on the Hot 100 year-end chart, only 4 were women. Since the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical was established in 1974, less than 10 women have been nominated. No woman has ever won. Clearly, the problem of representation in music is much bigger than Jack Antonoff—but considering him in this context is especially interesting given his tendency to work with critically significant artists who have written deeply personal albums about love and identity alongside him.

Antonoff 的不断出现让人不爽，可能是出于我们自己对音乐产业的渴望——如果我们这个时代的一些伟大的女性词曲作者也由女性制作人操刀制作，那不也很好吗？歌迷们有充足的理由怀疑为什么没有更多的女性制作人在流行音乐和独立音乐的第一梯队工作，尽管这一论题早已是陈年旧话并不新颖。南加州大学安纳伯格分校(USC Annenberg)的一项关于音乐行业包容性的研究发现，2020年在，Hot 100年终排行榜上的198位制作人中，仅有4位是女性。自格莱美于1974年设立年度最佳制作人奖（非古典领域）以来，只有不到10名女性被提名，而更是从来没有女性制作人获奖。显然，音乐行业中这一代表性问题比 Jack Antonoff 所引起的严重的多——但鉴于他倾向于与极具重要意义的艺术家合作，而这些艺术家又愿意与他一同书写关于爱情和自我认同等立意深刻的个人专辑，因而在这一节点考虑他便显得格外有趣。

Antonoff likes to remind people that he was not always the guy sought out by the stars. After years spent bouncing from punk to indie rock to Grammy-winning pop, his first really big songwriting/production credits arrived on Taylor Swift’s 2014 record 1989; “Out of the Woods,” in particular, established Antonoff’s early stylistic trademarks. Landing a handful of songs with the biggest singer-songwriter on Earth was pivotal for a guy who was best known as a member of the pop-rock band fun. or perhaps, as Lena Dunham’s boyfriend. “Before Taylor, everyone said: ‘You’re not a producer,’” Antonoff later told the New York Times. “It took Taylor Swift to say: ‘I like the way this sounds.’” It turned out that other artists liked it, too. After a handful of one-offs with pop stars like Troye Sivan, Grimes, and Sia, he embarked on his first full-length collaboration, Lorde’s sterling 2017 record Melodrama. If working with Swift helped him gain an identity beyond “guy in an impossible-to-Google band,” Antonoff’s work on Melodrama made him a headline-worthy name.

Antonoff 总喜欢提醒人们说他并不总是那个被明星们寻找的人。在从朋克到独立摇滚，再到能获得格莱美奖的流行音乐中辗转颠簸了多年之后，他的第一首真正重要的词曲创作作品出现在 Taylor Swift 2014年的唱片《1989》中；尤其是 “Out of the Woods”，确立了 Antonoff 早期的标志性合成器风格。对于一个以流行摇滚乐队 fun 的成员而闻名的人来说，与全球最著名的歌手/作曲家联合创作几首歌乃是他创作生涯中至关重要的一个节点，而不仅是作为 Lena Dunham 的男朋友。“在 Taylor 之前，每个人都你说：‘你并不是一个制作人’，” Antonoff 后来告诉《纽约时报》。“而 Taylor Swift 会说：‘我喜欢这样的声音’”。而事实证明，其他艺术家也喜欢它。在与 Troye Sivan、Grimes 和 Sia 等流行明星进行了简短的一次性合作后，他着手进行了他的首次全长合作——Lorde 在2017年发行的精彩专辑《Melodrama》。如果说与 Swift 的合作帮助他获得了超越“不可能 Google 到的乐队中的家伙”的身份，那么 Antonoff 在《Melodrama》中的出色表现使 “Jack Antonoff” 成为一个值得乐坛注目的名字。

2017 turned out to be a huge year for him. With the release of Melodrama, St. Vincent’s Masseducation, Swift’s Reputation, and his second Bleachers album, Antonoff’s public profile skyrocketed. His eagerness to be an open book stood in stark contrast to Swift, who was largely radio silent that year, and St. Vincent, who held court in a wooden box with pre-recorded responses to formulaic questions. (Lorde’s interviews that year were charmingly normal.) The myth of the genius is gendered, and even the most well-meaning white man casts a long shadow when placed on a pedestal. So it should come to no surprise that the narrative surrounding Antonoff has sometimes resulted in the erasure or depreciation of his female collaborators, subconsciously or otherwise. “He’s still writing Jack Antonoff songs—they just happen to be sung by people like Lorde now,” touted GQ in 2018, to which Lorde responded (and later deleted), “Knew there was a way to describe the personal and skilful [sic] work that i do turns out it’s ‘singing jack antonoff songs’.”

2017年对他来说是极为重要的一年。随着《Melodrama》、St. Vincent 的《Masseducation》、Swift 的《Reputation》以及他的个人项目 Bleachers 二专的发行，Antonoff 的公众形象直线攀升。他愈发渴望 曝光度，这与 Swift 和 St. Vincent 形成了鲜明对比，前者在那一年基本在互联网和电台隐身，而 St. Vincent 则屈尊于一个木箱里，事先对公式化的问题录制了回答。(那一年 Lorde照常接受采访。）天才们的传奇是有性别区分的，即使是最具善意的男性白人，在被置于神坛上时也会投下长长的阴影。也因而围绕 Antonoff 的叙述评论有时会致使他的女性合作者被漠视或贬低，无论是无心为之还是其他，这一点都不奇怪。2018年《GQ》杂志无脑吹捧道：“他还在写属于 Jack Antonoff 的歌——只不过恰巧被 Lorde 这样的人唱了。”Lorde 对此回应道（后来删除了）：“我知道有种方式来描述我所创作的独具个人风格、技巧娴熟的作品，最后发现那就是‘唱 Jack Antonoff 的歌’。”

Lately, this mode of thought has done a 180°: When an artist’s fans find a shift in sound underwhelming, they love to blame Antonoff. Every one of Antonoff’s more recent collaborations has come with a fresh wave of tweets that accuse him of imposing “his sound”—essentially, nostalgic guitars and string arrangements, swelling choruses—on his female collaborators. Sure, maybe the songs are not all that exciting—“Solar Power” needs a stronger hook, St. Vincent’s “The Melting of the Sun” is bloodless—but the remarks also tend to feed into the age-old stereotype that women artists have no agency over their work. If we won’t let Antonoff take sole responsibility for their successes, why should he be given ownership of their lukewarm musical departures, too? Let ladies have their flops!

最近，这种思维模式发生了180度的转变。当一个艺术家的乐迷发现这一声音的转变让人深感乏味时，他们更倾向于指责 Antonoff。Antonoff 最近的每一次合作都尾随着一波推特浪潮，指责他把“自己的音乐”——基本上就是复古风的吉他、弦乐编曲、抓耳的副歌——强加给他的女性合作者们。当然，也许这些歌曲也确实并不那么激动人心——“Solar Power” 显然需要一个更有力的 hook；St. Vincent 的 “The Melting of the Sun” 也显得苍白无力——但这些言论也倾向于迎合一种古早的刻板印象——女性艺术家对其作品没有控制权。如果我们不让 Antonoff 对她们的成功负全责，那为何又要让他对她们不温不火的音乐负责？还不如就让那些女士们糊穿地心吧!

Besides, these interpretations misunderstand Antonoff’s priorities as a producer and songwriter. Since he tends to be an album guy these days, he’s usually involved and invested in the entirety of a project rather than one piece of the puzzle. In interviews over the years, he has reinforced the notion that emotional vulnerability, instead of a signature sound, is the cornerstone of his work. As Antonoff tells it, recording sessions seem to resemble a more symbiotic version of psychotherapy: “When I work with other people, I’m always trying to find out: Where can we go even further?” he once told Pitchfork. “In the second verse, can you fire out a few lines about something that happened to you when you were 9?”

此外，这些说法误解了 Antonoff 作为一个制作人和作曲家的这一前提。由于他现在倾向于做专辑，他通常参与致力于一整个项目，而不是其中的某一部分。在这些年的采访中，他已经加强了这样一个概念——情感的易损性才是他作品的基石，而非一个标志性的制作风格。正如 Antonoff 所说，这些专辑似乎更像一种共生版的心理治疗。“当我和其他人合作时，我总是试图找出我们能在哪里走得更远？”他曾在 Pitchfork 举例道：“在第二小节，你能不能说说你 9 岁时发生的事儿？”

It’s not surprising that this method would build trust and a consistent working relationship. Antonoff’s collaborators have universally positive things to say about him: St. Vincent called him “the best teammate you could want… he’s 100 percent a cheerleader”; the Chicks’ Martie Maguire described him as an easy confidant for the close-knit trio; Lorde said they can communicate “almost telepathically” and that songwriting can feel “like actual alchemy.” In an industry rife with creeps, positive creative relationships like these are indisputably invaluable. If musicians want to work with Antonoff instead of the Dr. Lukes of the world, can you really blame them?

这种方法会逐步建立起基于信任且稳定长远的工作关系，这不足为奇。Antonoff 的合作者们对他的评价普遍是正面积极的：St. Vincent 称他是“你所能想到的最好的队友……他百分之百是啦啦队长”；南方小鸡乐队的 Martie Maguire 形容他是这一亲密三人组的蓝颜知己；Lorde 曾说他俩几乎可以“心灵感应”，写歌感觉就像“真正的炼金术”一般奇妙。在这个充斥着利益熏心的小人的行业中，拥有如此积极的创作关系是无价的——如果音乐家们想与 Antonoff 而非那个臭名昭著的 Dr. Lukes 合作，你又如何能责怪她们呢？

But maybe all the irritation surrounding Antonoff has less to do with underwhelming songs but his public persona. The man has a real Dan Humphrey aura about him, and can’t go a single interview without mentioning how growing up across the river from Manhattan made him insecure, despite the fact that he attended a prestigious performing arts high school next to Central Park. He talks of idolizing the Boss, and then releases an album that’s borderline Springsteen cosplay—cheesy and cliché at best, and musical manspreading at worst. And isn’t it strange that the past two Bleachers albums have arrived roughly two weeks before that of Lorde’s? While I have no reason to doubt the genuine care behind his approach to songcraft, there’s something icky about aggressively presenting yourself as a man empathetic to women’s emotions. Thank you, we get it! Given the headlines about how he does not want to merely take up space, he has traveled through pop with extreme Main Character Energy. It’s not entirely his fault, he just can’t help it.

但也许所有围绕 Antonoff 的愤懑都与他平平无奇的歌曲无关，而与他的公众形象有关。这个人身上有一种真·Dan Humphrey 光环，每次采访他都会提到在曼哈顿河对岸长大如何使他缺乏安全感，尽管他最终是在中央公园旁边的著名艺术高中上学。他也总谈到对大能的崇拜，然后发行了一张不起眼的cosplay Bruce Springsteen的专辑——往好了说是接地气和陈词滥调，往坏了说是音乐领域的卖老式“大爷占座”。而且，过去两张 Bleachers 的专辑总比 Lorde 的专辑提早发行两个星期左右，这不奇怪吗？虽然我没有理由怀疑他在歌曲创作方法背后真正的意所指，但奋力地把自己表现为一个对女性情感有同理心的男人，还是有些令人不适。多亏了你（Diana Ross《Thank You》），我们也意识到了！考虑到他不仅仅是想占用头条新闻，他如今已经带着极端的主角光环纵横于流行音乐界。这也不全是他的错，他就是忍不住。