【搬运】【译】滚石Rolling Stone评Madonna《Madame X》
搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】
原文链接：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0AP8RiR89bViaq7WItTcLw
原文翻译：Simon Joanne
原文审译：Tyler Smith
原文排版：Ryan-Chopin（在原文基础上添加了英语原文，评分截图与排版调整）
Madonna albums from this century fall into two categories: the playing-it-safe ones, and the “WTF is she thinking?” ones. You might be tempted to assume the mega-weird ones are better, but nothing is ever that straightforward in the Madonna universe. Confessions on a Dance Floor was her totally safe execution of an obvious idea — why doesn’t history’s greatest disco mastermind just make a damn disco record? — but it was also brilliant. Whereas the certifiably flaky American Life was certifiably ass. That’s just one of the many reasons Madonna remains the queen of all pop queens.
Madonna新世纪以来的专辑大致可分为两类：一种是非常保险甚至可以说是保守的，另一种是让人完全摸不着头脑的。你也许会觉得像后者这种极其奇怪的专辑可能要好一点，但是在Madonna的世界里，事情从不会这么简单明了。人们常常会想那些优秀的迪斯科音乐幕后策划者为什么不自己制作一张迪斯科专辑呢？《Confessions on a Dance Floor（舞池中的忏悔）》便是Madonna对这种想法一种保守的践行，结果是张专辑确实非常优秀。然而，《American Life（美式生活）》则实在是一团糟。当然，上面提到的这些只是Madonna成为流行乐坛一众Diva中唯一女帝的一部分原因。
Yet Madame X is so admirably bizarre, all you can do is stand back and watch the girl go. “It’s a weird kind of energy,” as she sings in “God Control” — a rare moment of Madonna understatement. She dips into a melting pot of Latin pop styles, complete with a reggaeton jam called “bitch I’m Loca.” It’s for fans of her loca edge only — the wildest move she’s made since I’m Breathless, where she trapped “Vogue” in a maze of camp show-tunes. Every track on Madame X overflows with experiments no other pop star on earth would have the chutzpah to try.
尽管，《Madame X》是一张奇怪又让人喜爱的专辑，但你能做的依旧只是在一旁远观她的旅程。“It’s a weird kind of energy（这是一种奇怪的能量），”她在《God Control》中唱道，这是Madonna在专辑中难得的含蓄表达的时刻。她在专辑中潜入了拉丁流行乐的大熔炉之中，完成了一首雷鬼作品——《bitch I’m Loca》。这首歌是特别献给她最疯狂的粉丝的——这也是她在《I’m Breathless（我难以喘息）》之后最为疯狂的尝试，正是在《I’m Breathless》中她在错综复杂的坎普风（是一种将是否使观者感到荒谬滑稽作为作品迷人与否评判标准的艺术感受）流行曲调中埋下了《Vogue》这只经典曲目。《Madame X》中的每一首歌都充满其他任何流行歌手都不敢尝试的实验元素。
She teamed up with Colombian superstar Maluma for the scandal-bait lead single “Medellin,” learning to cha-cha-cha in her shaky new accent. As it turns out, there’s a lot more where “Medellin” came from. Like a vocoder singing The Nutcracker in “Dark Ballet.” Or the moment where she chants: “People think that I’m insane / The only gun is in my brain / Each new birth, it gives me hope / That’s why I don’t smoke that dope.”
在先行首单《Medellin》中，Madonna邀请到哥伦比亚新天王Maluma进行合作，在歌曲中用着她全新的摇摆口音领了一场恰恰舞。事实证明，《Medellin》还有其他的来源。用经过过度处理的声音在《Dark Ballet》中唱《胡桃夹子》，又或者是喊麦道：“People think that I’m insane / The only gun is in my brain / Each new birth, it gives me hope / That’s why I don’t smoke that dope（人们认为我疯掉了，但我的反击来自头脑并非手中的枪，每一次新生都给我以新的希望，这就是我不吸毒的原因）。”
“Madame X” is the name she says Martha Graham gave her when she acted up in dance class, and as she’s explained, “Madame X is back to her roots, OK? She doesn’t care. Zero you-know-whats.” She made it with Mike Dean, her collaborator on 2015’s Rebel Heart, and Mirwais Ahmadzai, who co-produced one of her best ever (2000’s Music) as well as American Life. She throws down with Quavo, Diplo and Rae Sremmerd’s Swae Lee.
据Madonna说，“X夫人”是她在学习舞蹈时，舞蹈老师Martha Graham给她取的名字，她继续解释道：“是X夫人回归了自我，她并不关心，而你们什么都不知道。”她和Mike Dean（他曾与Madonna合作制作了在2015年发行的《Rebel Heart（叛逆之心）》）还有Mirwais Ahmadzai（他帮助Madonna制作了新世纪以来最棒的一些音乐，包括《American Life》）一起制作了这张专辑，同时还邀请到Quavo, Diplo、Rae Sremmerd与Swae Lee。
Weirdest of all, there are truly great Madonna moments all over Madame X. Especially “Crave,” a love song with florid acoustic guitar where she plays down the accent and gets lost in emotion. “Come Alive” has that “Cherish” girl-group flair, while “Crazy” toys with old-school Massive Attack trip-hop. (“I bend my knees for you like a prayer” — hey, where have we heard that before?) But with her typical nerve, she buries the strongest songs deep in Madame X. To reach them, you have to endure disasters like “Killers Who Are Partying,” where she ponders political oppression: “I’ll be Islam if Islam is hated / I’ll be Israel if they’re incarcerated.”
最奇怪的是，这张专辑中确实有不少麦当娜式的亮点。特别是《Crave》，在这首情歌中，在绚丽的原声吉他伴奏下，她放下了嗓音的特色，沉浸到了情绪的海洋之中。《Come Alive》有着《Cherish》中那种女孩帮的活力，而《Crazy》则将老派的Massive Attack乐队的trip-hop风格玩弄于股掌之间。【“I bend my knees for you like a prayer（“我为你跪下，就像在祈祷”）——喂！我们是不是在哪听过这句歌词啊？】但是按照以往的习惯，Madonna总是把最有力量的歌曲藏在专辑的深处。为了找到这些歌曲，你必须先把灾难般的歌曲听完，比如说《Killers Who Are Partying》，她在这首歌中表达了自己对于政治迫害的思考——“I’ll be Islam if Islam is hated / I’ll be Israel if they’re incarcerated（如果伊斯兰教徒受到仇恨，那我就是伊斯兰教徒；如果以色列人受到监禁，那我就是以色列人）”。
Madonna has a long history with Latin America and its music, going back way before “La Isla Bonita.” Her first hits bubbled out of a Latina context — her debut was a New York freestyle record forged on the floor of the Fun House. On Madame X, she attempts musical languages beyond what she’s tried before. “Came from the Midwest / Then I went to the Far East,” she confesses amid the piano and tablas of “Extreme Occident,” the most touching and vulnerable ballad here. It’s a revealing moment — she’s always been a musical traveler, a Bowie-style lodger who’s roamed all over the world and left every place. (Or, as another great Detroit rocker once put it: she is the passenger.) No wonder she cops to “a mix of lucidity and craziness.” Her only roots are on the dance floor. But if she had any shame about making people cringe, she never would have made it to the Fun House, let alone where she went from there.
Madonna和拉丁美洲及其音乐有一段不短的渊源，这要追溯到《La Isla Bonita》之前了。Madonna 的第一首热单就出自拉丁背景——她的处女作是一张在夜店（麦当娜曾做过夜店舞娘）里制作出来的纽约式的即兴专辑。在《Madame X》中她尝试着用超越她曾经使用过的音乐语言。“Came from the Midwest / Then I went to the Far East（我来自中西部，然后去了遥远的东海岸）”她在《Extreme Occident》钢琴和塔布拉双鼓的伴奏下唱着，这首民谣是全专最感人也是最脆弱的一首歌。这是一个极具启发性的时刻，她一直是个音乐的旅行者，一位鲍伊式的房客，漫游全世界，又从未在任何一个的地方驻足（或者用另一个来自底特律的著名摇滚乐手的话说：她是一名旅客）。这也难怪，她“既清醒又疯狂”。她唯一摆脱不了的根是舞池。如果她对于让人望而却步感到羞耻的话，她就不可能去到夜店，更不会有她从此出发所到的境界了。
There’s something gratifying about the way the music on Madame X can trigger that familiar “worried about Madonna” feeling. Let’s face it, aren’t we proud of our Eighties mega-pop idols for still being willing to act up like this? Imagine going back in time to the Eighties and saying, “Someday, Madonna will chant ‘bitch I’m loca’ the same week Bruce Springsteen releases his concept album about horses.” These two legends never let us down, in their very different ways. Time will tell if Madame X has staying power or not. But if you love Madonna for her shamelessness — bitch, she’s loca.
当然，关于《Madame X》中的音乐让人产生为Madonna感到担心的情绪的也并非全是坏事。承认吧，难道我们不会为这位80年代的超级流行偶像这样的举动感到高兴吗？想象一下回到80年代，然后宣言：“未来的某一天，Madonna会在发行的新专辑里唱一首《bitch I’m loca》，Bruce Springsteen会发行一张关于马的概念专辑。”这两位传奇巨星从没有让我们失望，他们始终在用他们各自不同的方式保持着新鲜感。时间会证明《Madame X》是否具有持续的生命力。但如果你因她的大胆无畏而热爱Madonna——她就是一个疯子（bitch, she’s loca）。
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more about Madame X：
【译】Rolling Stone评价Madonna的《Madame X》巡演CV5780505
【译】Rolling Stone评价Madonna的《Madame X》CV5780512
【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 Madonna《Madame X》CV5780533
《X夫人》的隐藏音轨vocal and sounds BV13g4y187EJ
《X夫人》豪华场刊开箱视频BV1B64y1u7B1
《God Control》电台版BV1sA411b7nT
