【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 The Weeknd 2020年专辑《After Hours》
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：Joonly EC
审译：Ryan-Chopin
排版：Ryan-Chopin
Abel Tesfaye finally delivers on his long-running vision, leveraging a self-loathing villain into an irresistible, cinematic narrative with his most satisfying collision of new wave, dream pop, and R&B.
Abel Tesfaye（The Weeknd的原名）最终达成了他长久以来的愿景，利用一个自怜自艾的都市恶棍形象，讲述了一个让人无法抗拒的、电影般的故事和一场十分令人满意的新浪潮、电子合成器流行乐、R&B的碰撞结合。
The Weeknd’s latest short film opens with the Toronto singer grinning maniacally onstage. He’s just finished a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and blood crawls down the side of his bandaged nose, threatening to drip onto his suit. As the audience cheers, Abel Tesfaye walks backstage, his artificial smile intact, until he reaches a hallway where it fades into a frigid stare.
来自多伦多的歌手The Weeknd，他站在舞台上精神失常般地咧嘴笑，以此展开了他的最新音乐短片。他刚刚结束在《吉米鸡毛秀》上的表演，鼻子包着绷带，血从里面渗出来，好像就要滴到衣服上了。在观众的欢呼声中，Abel Tesfaye走向后台，他的假笑丝毫未动，直到他走到走廊，渐渐变成冷淡的凝视。
The character he plays is an exaggerated riff on the solipsistic-hedonist persona Tesfaye has been tunneling into since his 2011 mixtape trilogy, where he first introduced listeners to his brand of brooding nihilism. In 2020, he continues to revel in high drama; After Hours dives deep into the textures of pleasure, despair, and how we consciously distance ourselves from our interiors.
他所扮演的角色是对Tesfaye自2011年混音专辑三部曲以来一直在挖掘的唯我主义享乐主义人物角色的夸张重复。在三部曲中，Tesfaye首次向听众介绍了令他沉思的虚无主义个人特色。在2020年，他继续陶醉于精彩的个人戏剧;《After Hours》让我们深入探索快乐和绝望的感觉，以及如何有意识地与内心世界保持距离。
After years of attempting to bring the spectral tones of his early mixtapes to a mainstream pop format, Tesfaye finally unites his two worlds. His major-label debut Kiss Land was a languid disappointment, and Beauty Behind the Madness failed to live up to the promise made by the Trilogy tapes. After Hours delivers on the most compelling aspects of Tesfaye’s vision; leveraging a self-loathing villain into an irresistible, cinematic narrative with his most satisfying collision of new wave, dream pop, and R&B.
多年来，Tesfaye一直试图将早期混音带的光谱色调融入主流流行音乐，最终他将自己的两个世界合二为一。他的厂牌处女作《Kiss Land》让人失望，而《Beauty Behind the Madness》也未能达到三部曲作品所承诺的效果。《After Hours》提供了最引人注目的Tesfaye的愿景，利用一个自怜自艾的都市恶棍形象，讲述了一个让人无法抵抗的、电影般的故事和一场十分令人满意的新浪潮、电子合成器流行乐、R&B的碰撞结合。
Even if he is singing about the same things—bacchanalian excess, loneliness as rapture, using women to rehabilitate his poor little life—the fresh vocals and production flourishes do the trick. On “Too Late,” his longtime producer Illangelo (alongside Lizzo producer Ricky Reed and DaHeala) mutate UK garage’s syncopated kicks and pitch-shifted echoes, drawing on the spirit of My Dear Melancholy,’s “Wasted Times.” “Hardest to Love” couples a sharp jungle break with Tesfaye’s longing whispers about remorse and a troubled partnership. Oneohtrix Point Never and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker also lend production on “Repeat After Me (Interlude)” a collage of psychedelic wooshes and Vocoder dubs, while the ghostly eulogy “Until I Bleed Out” uses liturgical synth arpeggios reminiscent of “Boring Angel” from OPN’s R Plus Seven.
即使他唱的总是同样的东西——酗酒、孤独和狂喜，利用女人来恢复他可怜的小生命——新鲜的歌声和华丽的演出也能达到目的。在"Too Late"中，他的长期制作人Illangelo与Lizzo的制作人Ricky Reed和DaHeala一起，改变了英国Garage乐队切分的Kicks（一重鼓点）和变音的回声，汲取了《My Dear Melancholy》中"Waste Times"的精神。“Hardest to Love”分裂了他渴望的爱之呢喃，诉说着悔恨和陷入困境的伴侣关系。Oneohtrix Point Never和Tame Impala的Kevin Parker也参与了“Repeat After Me (Interlude)”的制作，这是一个迷幻的呼呼声和声音合成机的拼贴，而幽灵般的悼词“Until I Bleed Out”使用了礼拜式的合成和弦，让人想起了OPN's R Plus Seven中的“Boring Angel”。
There’s always been a cinematic flair to Tesfaye’s music, as if he’s been chasing after his own Purple Rain moment—for now, he’ll have to settle for a cameo in the Safdie Brothers’ 2019 thriller Uncut Gems. He draws on synth-pop nostalgia to mirror the tragic glitz of ’80s Hollywood: “In Your Eyes” includes an arena-sized cheeseball sax solo, while the plinking synths and slick hand-claps of “Save Your Tears” evoke a long-lost Wham! track. Tesfaye can lean a little too hard on these Reagan-era signifiers, but his bleeding-heart melodies and donating an unforgettable hook to the synth player on “Blinding Lights” remind us why we keep listening in the first place.
Tesfaye的音乐总有一种电影天赋，就好像他一直在追逐属于自己的Purple Rain(Prince的经典曲目)时刻——现在，他只能满足于在Safdie兄弟2019年的惊悚片《Uncut Gems》中客串一个角色。他利用对合成流行音乐的怀旧来反映80年代好莱坞的悲剧浮华:"In Your Eyes"中有一场宏伟的萨克斯独奏，而“Save Your Tears"中合成器的叮当声和拍手声则让人想起再也听不到的Wham（威猛乐队）的音乐。Tesfaye可能对这些里根时代的符号过于依赖，但他那动人心弦的旋律，以及在"Blinding Lights"中的一段令人难忘的合成器旋律，解释了我们为什么我们一开始就会沉迷于这首歌。
Like any good villain, Tesfaye is aware of the character he plays, dropping tongue-in-cheek one-liners like “Futuristic sex, give her Philip K. Dick” on “Snowchild.” Meanwhile, “Faith” cranks the gloomy dial up to 11, summoning a death drive reminiscent of the double-decker bus from The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.” “But if I OD, I want you to OD right beside me,” he sings. “I want you to follow right behind me.”
和所有的反派角色一样，Tesfaye也很了解自己扮演的这个角色，他在"Snowchild"中说了一句半开玩笑的俏皮话，比如"给她一种科幻小说般的未来性爱（改编自网易云歌词翻译）”。与此同时，"Faith"的阴暗程度一下子调高了几个段，召唤出一种死亡的感觉，让人想起Smiths乐队的"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"里的双层巴士。“但如果我哭了，我希望你也在我身边哭，”他唱道，“我要你跟在我身后。”
Despite all these textbook Weekndisms, Tesfaye wants us to know he’s struggling to reconcile the sinner he once was with the man he’s trying to become. He may not be the dysfunctional addict of the Trilogy years, but he’s also not willing to be the partner a woman might need him to be. What more can you expect out of pop music’s antihero? There is not a single song on the album that colors outside the lines he established nine years ago, but his narrow focus has paid off: He’s finally found harmony between the enigmatic noir-pop that broke him to the blogs and the arena-worthy ambition that launched him into the mainstream. It’s hard to tell where the universe of listeners fixated on filling spiritual voids through sex, drugs, and romance ends and the universe of the Weeknd’s tortured, empty melancholy and drunken, devastating love begins. That’s the beautiful blur of After Hours.
尽管有这些教科书式的Weeknd特色，Tesfaye想让我们知道，他正在努力让他曾经的罪人与他想要成为的人和解。他可能不再是三部曲中那个不正常的瘾君子，但也不愿意成为一个被女性左右的理想伴侣。你还能从这个流行音乐的反派身上期待什么呢?在这张专辑中，没有一首歌曲能超越他九年前确立的风格，但他狭隘的关注点也终于得到了回报:他终于在小众的神秘暗黑流行曲风和被主流关注之间找到了和谐点。我们很难判断，那些专注于用性爱、毒品和浪漫来填补精神空虚的听众是什么时候结束那些困扰的，也不清楚The Weeknd痛苦、空虚、忧郁和醉醺醺、毁灭性的爱情是什么时候开始的。那是《After Hours》带来的朦胧美罢。
