译Pitchfork评Charli XCX 2017年混音带《Pop 2》

翻译：thesweetescape

Charli XCX’s latest mixtape is a vision of what pop music could be, the sound of an eclectic, hyperreal future where romantic love is fun but fucked and partying is an emotional refuge.

Charli XCX的最新混音带呈现出未来流行乐的无限可能，兼收并蓄的大胆尝试，在超现实的hyper音乐世界中，热恋的浪漫无处可寻，去他的寻欢作乐成为情感的庇护所。

Maybe some people look at Sophia, the world’s first robotic citizen, and feel optimistic about the endless horizon of potential, both technological and human; I look at Sophia and feel an unsettling sadness. There is something profoundly tragic in her existence, a sense of uncanny anti-natalism that triggers a strange empathy for those who also did not ask to be born. Sophia has sharp cheekbones and golden eyes, molded in the likeness of Audrey Hepburn. Her bald head opens at the back to unveil a disturbing metal cap that hides the whirring mechanics within her skull. Through knee-jerk millennial instinct, that vulnerable bald skull always flashes me back to those unforgettable photos of Britney Spears at the gas station in 2007—head freshly shaved, eyes blank and wild, umbrella wielded as a machete. It is the image of a woman who has decided to finish the job the world started: complete disassembly.

也许有些人正关注着世界上第一位机器人公民索菲亚，并对未来科技与人类间的无限潜力感到乐观。但当我看向索菲亚，只感到隐隐不安的悲哀：她的问世极具悲伤色彩，一种不可思议的反出生主义，让我对那些后悔出生在这个世界的人群抱以奇怪的同情。索菲亚的颧骨很尖，以奥黛丽赫本为模板铸造的金色眼睛。她令人惶恐的光头形象，后脑头骨内部装有透明金属帽遮盖的旋转机械装置。出于千禧一代的本能反应，那秃顶脑袋总让我不断闪回2007年时的Britney Spears在加油站留下的难以忘怀的照片——刚剃过光头，眼神茫然而疯狂，把雨伞当作砍刀挥舞。这是一个女人终究被周遭世界侵蚀的画面：彻底的精神崩溃。

Charli XCX knows this trope—the glitched-out femmebot, programmed for love—all too well. She grew up on Britney and the Spice Girls, then joined Myspace and catapulted into the brash, neon-tinted world of bloghouse and Hype Machine electro. After spending her early teens performing in big sunglasses and blonde wigs at DIY London raves, she signed to Asylum Records at 18 to live her pop star dreams. With the massive success of Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” (both co-written by Charli) alongside her first solo hit, “Boom Clap,” her mainstream crossover seemed like a given, ready whenever she was. Instead, she doubled down on the weirdo Tumblr-core mixtapes she used to release for free, linking with post-post-modern bubblegum bass crew PC Music to try and figure out exactly what kind of artist she wanted to be. “Go fuck your prototype/I’m an upgrade of your stereotype,” Charli purrs on “Femmebot,” a cut off her latest tape, Pop 2, before her humanoid vocals stutter and short-circuit. Or as Robyn put it seven years prior: “Fembots have feelings, too.”

Charli XCX对这个概念再熟悉不过了——为爱而生的故障女机器人——同时她也是从小听Britney Spears和Spice Girls的歌曲长大的艺人，在Myspace平台创建账号，扎入艳丽霓虹灯式的bloghouse曲风和在Hype Machine上流行的电子曲风。青少年时期的Charli XCX戴着大墨镜和金色假发在自己举办的伦敦锐舞派对上表演，在18岁时与Asylum唱片公司签约，追求自己的流行歌星梦。随着Icona Pop的《I Love It》和Iggy Azalea的《Fancy》取得巨大成功（这两首歌都有Charli参与创作），还有她的首支个人热单《Boom Clap》，转型主流似乎是顺理成章，只看她自己意愿的事。然而，她却全身心投入针对Tumblr核心用户免费发行的另类混音带的制作工作中，与后后现代泡泡糖贝斯团队PC Music合作，探索自己未来应该成为什么样的艺术家。（歌词） “Go fuck your prototype/I’m an upgrade of your stereotype,” Charli XCX在歌曲“Femmebot”中低音唱道，一段收录在混音带《Pop 2》的歌词。或许正如Robyn七年前（在歌曲"Fembot")里的歌词那样“Fembots have feelings, too.”（机器姬也有情感）。

Pop 2—the best full-length work of both Charli and PC Music’s respective careers—is the antidote to the overwhelming monotony of the 2017 pop charts. It’s Charli’s second mixtape of 2017, which, calling your project a “mixtape” is a pretty negligible move these days, especially if you’re putting it up for sale. But for Charli, who’s been expressing herself in the format since before it was cool, there’s a meaningful distinction: albums mean compromise; mixtapes mean total creative freedom. As streaming services render organic music discovery obsolete, and as major label A&R decisions feel increasingly like a demented cross-promotional Mad-Lib of someone who has heard approximately four rap songs, Pop 2’s sprawling, thoughtful mass of guests—from Brazilian drag queen/vocalist Pabllo Vittar, to Estonian emcee Tommy Cash, to Hollyweird-via-Cologne pop conceptualist Kim Petras—put me on to no less than five artists I’d never heard of before. Because Pop 2’s not really about Charli XCX, Pop Star Extraordinaire; it’s an uninhibited, anti-algorithm vision of what pop music could be.

《Pop 2》是Charli XCX也是PC Music厂牌发行过最好的完整作品——是应对2017年流行单曲异常单调乏味的解药。这是Charli XCX在同年发行的第二张混音带，如今，滥发的“混音带”相当微不足道，尤其是以此噱头宣传。但对Charli XCX，这个早就开始做混音带探索自我的女人，这具有深厚意义：专辑寓意着妥协;混音带则寓意着完全的创作自由。随着流媒体的兴起，传统的星探逐渐淘汰，厂牌的A&R部门（唱片公司里负责发掘、训练歌手或艺人的一个部门）的决策越来越像一个只听过大概四首说唱歌曲也能完成填字游戏的癫狂闲杂人员。《Pop 2》的众多且考虑周到的客座嘉宾——从巴西变装皇后/歌手Pabllo Vittar，到爱沙尼亚主持人Tommy Cash，再到来自德国科隆立志进军好莱坞的怪诞流行概念家Kim petras——让我认识了至少5位我从未听说过的艺术家。《Pop 2》并非全部聚焦于Charli XCX这位非同寻常的流行巨星；这是张不加拘束，打破常规，畅想未来音乐的专辑。

It’s not just the guest roster that sets Pop 2 so apart from the mainstream pop landscape, it’s the way these voices are integrated, making its 10 tracks feel less like a cool-kid curation project and more like a popping afterparty you’ve stumbled into. On “Out of My Head”—the kind of song that makes you want to slam a Strawberita and dance all night—Charli doesn’t show up in the mix until the second verse, giving the spotlight to Swedish bloghouse revivalist Tove Lo and Finnish trop-goth ALMA. By the bridge, the three voices have braided together almost imperceptibly. And on “Backseat,” an instant night-drive classic (and a fever-dream collab for anyone who replies to celebrity tweets with “mom”), Charli and synth-pop sweetheart Carly Rae Jepsen exchange verse and hook duty before coming together as one voice, howling “All alone, all alone, all alone” in unison. These are huge, emotionally climactic songs, with soaring melodies and bass that sounds like the shifting of skyscraper scaffolding. But there’s something doomed and loveless in the air, too; on Pop 2, romantic love is fun but fucked and partying is an emotional refuge.

《Pop 2》与主流流行乐的巨大差异不仅在于嘉宾名单，还在于这些声音的融合方式，使EP里的10首歌曲不像一个酷炫小孩的策划项目，而更像一场你无意闯入的庆祝派对。在歌曲“Out of My Head”中——一首让你酣醉于草莓玛格丽特酒彻夜舞动的歌曲——Charli在第二段主歌才开始献声，将聚光灯让给瑞典Bloghouse曲风复兴者Tove Lo和芬兰哥特歌手Alma。在歌曲bridge处，三人的声音悄无声息地交织在一起。在“Backseat”这首深夜驾驶的当代经典歌曲中（对于那些在名人推特上评论“妈妈”的听众来说，这是一次梦寐以求的合作），Charli XCX与合成器流行甜心Carly Rae Jepsen交换主歌与副歌部分，不约而同地喊出（歌词）“All alone, all alone, all alone”。这些情感爆发的歌曲，伴随着高昂的旋律和如同拆除高楼施工架般的贝斯，却也深藏着无能为力的宿命感和冷漠无情。在《Pop 2》中，热恋的浪漫无处可寻，去他的寻欢作乐成为情感的庇护所。

It’s Pop 2’s production, more than anything, that places it on the vanguard of a complete stylistic breakthrough, thanks wap720ly to PC Music’s A.G. Cook, whose credit appears on every song. I was skeptical of the label’s high-concept art school antics when they first emerged; but the further they’ve gotten from the Web 1.0 shtick, the more vital the collective’s impeccable, poignant pop futurism has become. And though Pop 2 sounds like the future, even more delightful is the way it hybridizes sounds from the past two decades of weirdo electronics: the synthetic maximalism of Rustie and HudMo, heartfelt late ’90s Eurodance a la Aqua or DJ Sammy, Crystal Castles’ goth electro-scuzz, J-pop super-producer Yasutaka Nakata’s wistful Shibuya-kei, Cher’s “Believe,” and of course, Britney, from Blackout to Britney Jean. And though it’s by now common practice for pop stars to flirt with hip-hop production, the results often reveal a cynically low level of engagement with the genre—tacking on “Metro Boomin-Type Beat,” some 808s, and calling it a day. Here, Charli and A.G. Cook know exactly what they’re going for: the “Versace”-style repetition on alien posse cut “I Got It”; the pristine, sultry chords, reminiscent of Late Nights With Jeremih on “Out of My Head”; the slurry, decayed cadences on “Delicious,” calling to mind Travis Scott or Swae Lee.

正是制作使得《Pop 2》超凡脱俗，成为打破潮流定义的前卫先锋大作，多亏来自PC Music的 A.G. Cook，EP每首歌都有他的署名。刚开始接触他们厂牌成立初期的高端艺术时，我有点怀疑自我；但随着他们逐渐吸纳Web 1.0风格，他们的作品风格越发不懈可击直击人心。尽管《Pop 2》像未来的音乐，但却糅合了过去20年的另类电子经典作品：Rustie与HudMo的合成极致主义、Aqua或DJ Sammy的90年代末激昂欧陆舞曲、Crystal Castles的哥特电子风、J-pop顶级制作人中田康孝的的涩谷风、Cher的“Believe”，当然还有Britney Spears从《Blackout》到《Britney Jean》时期的音乐。尽管如今流行音乐引入嘻哈制作早已成为司空见惯的做法——但成果却不尽人意，粗制滥造地套用Metro Boomin式的节拍和一些808鼓点便草率了事。但EP里，Charli XCX与A.G. Cook很清楚他们该做出什么效果：歌曲”I Got It“中仿佛被外星人附身般的（Migos/Drake单曲）“Versace”式的重复唱段；“Out of My Head”中精致魅惑的和弦让我联想到Jeremih的2015年专辑《Late Nights》；歌曲“Delicious”中抑扬顿挫的暗黑腔调让我联想到Travis Scott和Swae Lee。

The strangest and most uncannily similar stylistic comparison to Pop 2, though, is former “Teen Mom” Farrah Abraham’s outsider opus, My Teenage Dream Ended. Sweepingly ridiculed as one of 2012’s worst albums, that judgment, five years later, feels wildly narrow-minded. It is a baffling work, to be sure: frantic layers of dubstep, EDM, witch-house, and breakbeats seem to run in the opposite direction as Abraham’s absurdly AutoTuned narratives about surviving the death of her husband. (In a recent interview, the album’s producer, Frederick M. Cuevas, admits that Abraham recorded her diaristic lyrics before ever hearing the music.) After my first full spin of Pop 2, I couldn’t shake the thought: “This sounds like Farrah, but good.” The album’s vocal processing is unlike anything I’ve heard in pop; Cook’s aggressive, evocative filtering has the paradoxical effect of heightening the humanity of it all. On “Lucky,” the tape’s saddest, wildest song (whose title cannot be understood without an implicit nod to Britney, whose own “Lucky” was her first of many explorations of the soul-sucking side-effects of stardom), Charli’s voice warps from anthropomorphic pan flute to rogue AOL dial-up tone to primal scream from the soul. When she sings, “You got no reception, you’re breaking up,” her voice gently stutters like it’s just out of service range, a subtle but brilliant touch.

与《Pop 2》风格相近的最诡异的作品，大概是前MTV真人秀“Teen Mom”演员Farrah Abraham的跨界之作《My Teenage Dream Ended》。曾被大众嘲讽为2012年最烂专辑之一，五年后再看，这种说法是过于目光短浅了。可以肯定的是，这是一张令人困惑的专辑；疯狂叠加的dubstep、EDM、witch-house、breakbeats似乎与Abraham走出丈夫去世阴影的专辑主题背道而驰。(在近期一次采访中，这张专辑的制作人Frederick M. Cuevas表示，Abraham在听到demo前就写好了她的日记歌词)。第一次完整聆听完《Pop 2》，我就不能摆脱这种想法：“听起来很像Farrah，但歌曲很棒。”这张混音带的人声处理方式与我所知的其他流行歌曲都不同。A.G Cook咄咄逼人且共鸣心灵的人声处理的做法意外彰显出人性光辉。在混音带中最悲情放肆的歌曲Lucky”中，（歌名显然照应Britney Spears的“Lucky”，她的“Lucky”是她首次探索巨星身份敲骨吸髓灵魂的副作用），Charli XCX的人声不断扭曲——从拟人化的排箫到怪异刺耳的拨号声再到灵魂间的原始尖啸。当她唱道（歌词）“You got no reception, you’re breaking up,”时，歌声轻柔间断，就像不在信号范围内，别出心裁的灵魂触动。

But the tape’s best moment is saved for last. Unceremoniously titled “Track 10,” the song glitches into focus as if beamed in from interstellar broadband. Charli’s hyper-filtered melodies float over a celestial synth choir, building into a densely-layered collage of her own voice, howling at the moon until their vocal chords go ragged. Halfway through, the track explodes into ecstatic drums and vocal effects from Lil Data, a PC Music artist who uses a program called TidalCycles to compose via code. Far from the pristine perfection of PC Music’s early releases, there’s something a bit messy about the whole thing—a sense of humanity, beaming plainly from its hyper-synthetic surroundings, that feels like a revelation.

但混音带最佳时刻留在了最后。突兀命名的歌曲“Track 10”，歌曲开头如同从浩瀚星际照进的光芒般在机器故障声中逐渐聚焦。Charli XCX提炼出的hyper旋律流淌在合成唱诗班的天空，用自己的声音筑造层次感，向圆月呼啸直至声嘶力竭。歌曲中段忽然崩裂为躁动鼓声和人声，这是源自PC Music的Lil Data的创意，他擅长用Tidalcycles程序编曲。相比PC Music早期严丝合缝的完美成品，这次作品却有些凌乱——这就是人性，就像一束白光刺过hyper合成器，好似神谕降临。