[渣翻] Pitchfork Reviews: ÷, 2.8/10

原文地址：https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22960-divide/

Ed Sheeran sells trite innocence by the pound. He uses bland wisdom and unimaginative music to ponder the basic good and bad in people around him, without once looking inward.

Ed Sheeran又开始论磅售卖他那老生常谈的纯洁了。他用他空荡荡的大脑和毫无想象力的音乐作品对他身边人物的对与错、好与坏进行了评判，却从来学不会内省。

Ed Sheeran needs you to know that he did not go to university. Instead, he spent his teens slogging around the UK pub circuit, and by the age of 20, he was on his way to becoming Britain’s biggest male pop star. Still, he likes to come back to the uni thing. He sings about not having a degree twice on his new album, ÷, after at least three earlier instances in his catalog. He’s fashioned this weighty chip on his shoulder into an arrow in his quiver, using it to shore up his everyman image and personable nature, while distinguishing himself as a bit of a cheeky system-shunning maverick who’s made it this far on chops alone. His shtick is aspirational: All you need is free will, a little song in your heart, and perhaps you too could one day be playing for 270,000 people across three nights at Wembley Stadium.

Ed Sheeran想通过这张专辑告诉所有人他没有上过大学。他的少年时代，在不停地游荡于英国的各个酒吧之间度过。到他20岁时，尽管他已经在成为最出名的英国男性流行歌星的道路上勉力前进，他似乎还是对和他无关的大学有某种执念。在他的新专辑÷当中，他两次提及自己没有拿到大学学位的事情，然而在他之前已经发行过的几张同样糟糕的专辑中已经至少说了三遍。他将没上过大学这一个严重的缺陷当成了支撑他塑造自己普通人形象和平易近人本性的有力武器，但是同时他也靠厚脸皮地钻音乐创作体制漏洞而闻名。他成长的经历和特质也非常励志：如果你意志自由，心中有歌，那么有一天你也可以在能容纳270000名观众的温布利体育场连开三天三夜的演唱会。

Innocence is key to the Ed Sheeran brand. His self-proclaimed uncoolness is what makes him both cool and impervious to bad-tempered criticism. He regularly describes his true love as an angel, refers to his father—a perpetually lingering prophet—as “daddy,” and sings tenderly about his grandparents. On ÷’s release day, he sold copies of his record in an HMV superstore, and looked indistinguishable from the full-time staff. There’s no doubt that Sheeran is calculating, but then he told you as much in his album titles (÷, 2014’s x, and 2011’s +). Like Sia, the Chainsmokers, and Charli XCX, he marvels at his ability to turn out generic hooks like nobody’s business—so many, he doesn’t even remember writing them when they hit No. 1 in 17 countries.

无辜纯真是Ed Sheeran最大的个人特点。他提前宣称自己并没有那么酷，不仅起到了让他看起来很酷的反作用，而且让他免受脾气暴躁的乐评家的批评攻击。他在这张专辑中一贯地将自己的爱人描写为一个天使，亲切地将他的父亲，他一直以来所敬仰的先知一般的人物，唱作“daddy”，他还温柔地轻唱着他爷爷奶奶的故事。在÷发行的那天，Ed Sheeran出现在HMV超市，亲自售卖专辑，他看起来和超市里的全职员工没什么两样。毫无疑问他是一个精于算计的人，他已经在专辑名称中展露了这一特质（这一次的÷，2014年的×，2011年的＋）。就像Sia，The Chainsmokers，Charli XCX一样，Ed Sheeran拥有惊人的hook创作能力——他写了太多平平无奇同质化严重的歌，以至于当由他创作的一首热单在17个国家登顶时，他都忘了自己写过这首歌。

This is the genial, antiseptic frame through which we’re to view Ed Sheeran. But considering he is among the most successful songwriters in the world, a lot of his lyrics do not even scan. “I’m just a boy with a one-man show, no un-er-ver-si-tee..., just a song I wrote,” he sings in “What Do I Know?” like a teenage boy trying to knot a cherry stem with his tongue. When he raps, as he does on “Eraser,” his words fit together with the elegance of Stickle Bricks. Good taste is of no concern: He lets John Mayer sleaze all over the tender ode to his girlfriend “How Would You Feel? (Paean)” with his guitar. Although you can practically hear Rihanna’s laugh after being offered the tropical house concession “Shape of You,” the song generally fares fine until Sheeran, the seventh richest British musician under the age of 30, admits to his dating style: “You and me are thrifty so go all you can eat/Fill up your bag and I fill up a plate/We talk for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour.”

以上是从友好而客观的角度对Ed Sheeran的审视。但是考虑到他是全球最成功的词曲创作者之一，他写的有些歌词不堪卒读。“I’m just a boy with a one-man show（我只是一个普通的男孩，只会单人表演）, no un-er-ver-si-tee...（没上过 de-a-大，xi-yue-学）, just a song I wrote（只有一首歌伴我左右）”，他在“What Do I Know?”中这样唱道，听起来就像个小屁孩尝试着在用自己的舌头给樱桃梗打结。他在说唱时，例如在“Eraser”中的演唱，就像积木凌乱地堆叠在一起。好的品味自然是没有的：他写给他他女朋友的颂歌“How Would You Feel? (Paean)”中的吉他伴奏充斥着拙劣模仿John Mayer的痕迹。尽管你仿佛能直接听到Rihanna在收到“Shape Of You”这首tropical house风格的歌曲之后嘲讽的大笑，但是这首歌的成绩却非常亮眼。这是因为Ed Sheeran这位全英国30岁以下第七富有的音乐人在这首歌中描述了自己的约会风格：“You and me are thrifty so go all you can eat（你我都比较节约所以直奔吃饭处而去）/Fill up your bag and I fill up a plate（你塞满了你的包，我也装满了我的盘）/We talk for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour（我们围绕着事物的酸甜苦辣说个不停）”

There is no greater evidence of Sheeran’s commercial power than his label acquiescing to keep Corrs tribute “Galway Girl” on this album. Set to bodhrán and uileann pipes, it’s the latest of many Sheeran barnstormers about meeting a great gal (who is definitely real) on a boozy night out. A check from the Irish tourist board for him name-dropping Guinness, Jameson, John Powers, and Van Morrison may be forthcoming, which would certainly cover any forthcoming lawsuit from B*Witched for infringing on their 1998 hit “C’est La Vie.” Sheeran traveled the world for a year before making this record, and considering his cultural takeaway from County Galway, we should be thankful his travels didn’t also inspire him to write a song about lassoing une mademoiselle with a string of onions beneath the Eiffel Tower, or how love sprang eternal with a girl in a dirndl in Austria.

Ed Sheeran所属的唱片公司默许他把“Galway Girl”这首致敬Corrs的歌放在专辑中，再也没有什么比这更能证明他的商业能力了。以宝思兰鼓和爱尔兰风笛为伴奏，这首歌是Ed Sheeran众多庸俗歌曲存货中最新的一首，讲述了他遇见了一个辣妹，并且一起在夜晚泡吧喝得酩酊大醉的事情（这些事情无疑是真实的）。爱尔兰旅游局应当给Ed Sheeran寄一张支票，以报答他在歌曲中提到了Guinness, Jameson, John Powers和Van Morrison以振兴爱尔兰旅游业。这张支票也许能替Ed Sheeran支付应付诉讼的费用，他被指控抄袭B*Witched在1998年发行的热单“C’est La Vie”。Sheeran在开始制作专辑之前环球旅行了一年来搜集灵感，鉴于他将Galway县的风土人情融于他的歌曲中，我们应该庆幸他没有在歌中写一些风流韵事，例如在埃菲尔铁塔下俘获了一位拿着一串洋葱的小姐的芳心，或者和一位穿着传统村姑裙的奥地利姑娘分分合合的故事。

On his past records, Sheeran often painted himself as a drunken mess, at the mercy of bad girls and dark situations. Whatever you made of them, they felt, to use a dirty word, honest. Here, “Eraser” feels like the only true reflection of his psyche, where he acknowledges his unrelatable predicament (“Ain’t nobody wanna see you down in the dumps/Because you’re living your dream, man/This shit should be fun”). For the rest of the record, he switches to a mode of bland wisdom that allows him to ponder the good and bad in people around him rather than look inwards. The lack of honesty doesn’t really matter—nobody’s going to Sheeran for gritty soul-searching. But the lack of imagination does. As with Adele, who was also told by Rick Rubin to go back to the drawing board, you suspect that more interesting songs may have been left off the record for commercial reasons.

在他以前的几张专辑中，Sheeran总是将他自己描述为一个总是喝醉的邋遢男人，总是将自己置于黑暗的处境下，和坏女孩鬼混。不论听众如何理解，它们听起来都，说句不好听的，很真实。在这张专辑中，“Eraser”听起来像是唯一一首能反映他真正的精神状态的歌，他在其中承认了自己不可挽回的处境(“Ain’t nobody wanna see you down in the dumps（没人愿意看你终日身处谷底）/Because you’re living your dream, man（你在为你的梦想活下去，兄弟）/This shit should be fun（让这该死的生活变得有趣）”)。在专辑其他的曲目中，他变换思路，用他空荡荡的大脑去简单评判身边人物的对错好坏，而从不向内探察更深入的东西。缺乏诚意并没有那么重要——没有人指望Sheeran能坚定地对自己和他人进行灵魂拷问。但是在音乐上缺乏想象力却是很严重的事情。就像Adele，被Rick Rubin要求不忘初心，从头再来，你甚至会去怀疑她的一些有趣的歌是不是因为商业原因没有被选入专辑。

If there’s a personal touch to Sheeran’s generic sentiments, it’s his unwavering belief in love. He’s often burned for it, he’s desperate for kids, he sees the future in his girlfriend’s eyes. Over the simpering groove of “What Do I Know?” he talks about how his “daddy” told him, “Son, don’t you get involved in politics, religion or other people’s quarrel.” Instead, like a Disney woodland creature, he just wants to pass on “the things my family’s given to me: just love and understanding, positivity.” His feeble message falls apart when the self-confessed careerist sighs at someone surely in his same tax bracket for talking “‘bout exponential growth, and the stock market crashing and their portfolios/While I’ll be sitting here with a song that I wrote.” Sheeran’s conditional optimism flashes back into view, and shows his judgmental ass: “I’m all for people following their dreams/Just remember life is more than fit-tin’ in your jeans,” he sings, in a chummy, winking dig at the basic, vapid women who do not share his own basic, vapid worldview.

如果和Sheeran的基本的情绪和观点有一个更进一步的接触，就会发现那是他对爱情忠贞不渝的信仰。他渴望爱情，期待拥有自己的孩子，他在女友的眼中看到属于他们的未来。在那首矫揉造作的“What Do I Know?”中，他讲述了他“爸爸“告诉他的事情，“Son, don’t you get involved in politics, religion or other people’s quarrel（爸爸告诉过我，不要卷进政治、宗教或其他人的争斗场）”。但是，他就像一个在迪士尼世界的树林里出现的生物一样，他只是想将“the things my family’s given to me: just love and understanding, positivity.（那些我的家庭教会我的事情：爱、理解和积极向上）”传递出去。他想传达的苍白无力的价值观立马就能分崩离析：就在这位事业狂对和他同处一个征税阶层的人们所谈论的事情感到灰心丧气时“‘bout exponential growth, and the stock market crashing and their portfolios（他们在讨论指数增长、股市崩盘和他们工作的业务量）/While I’ll be sitting here with a song that I wrote（我还是会静坐着，以我的歌伴身旁）” Sheeran限定的乐观又重新出现了，他又在传递他那些垃圾一般的断定：“I’m all for people following their dreams（我支持那些追逐梦想的人们）/Just remember life is more than fit-tin’ in your jeans（但是请谨记生活不只是让衣服合身）”，他用友好亲切的语调唱着，却像是在嘲讽那些普通底层女性没有他那样的普通底层的世界观。

It’s one of several striking lyrics about appearances on ÷, which is where the Nice Guy façade comes undone. Sheeran has always loved to neg and to position himself as an innocent victim. If you thought he’d got all that out of his system when he co-wrote Bieber’s risible “Love Yourself,” you were wrong. “Perfect” is “Unchained Melody” by way of Westlife, and a tender assurance to his beloved that she’s not a mess, but a beauty. The barely suppressed creepiness of “Happier” is his attempt at post-breakup maturity, but it doesn’t even last into the next track, “New Man,” a wounded sketch of his ex’s new boyfriend who has “his eyebrows plucked and his arsehole bleached,” and “wears a man bag on his shoulder but I call it a purse.” One nil, Sheeran. He turns his attentions to his ex. What happened to that sweet, sylvan girl who used to read and eat crisps by the river? “Now she’s eatin’ kale/Hittin’ the gym/Keepin’ up with Kylie and Kim.” You mean, when she could be listening to Sheeran rap about his daddy?

这是÷中为数不多的惊爆眼球的歌词，终于揭掉了他老好人的面具。Sheeran总是喜欢卖惨，把他自己定位为一个纯良无害的受害者。如果你认为他在和Bieber共同创作“Love Yourself”时能跳出他那一套自我的体系，那你就错了。“Perfect”是Westlife式曲风的阴魂不散，一首温柔的情歌，唱给他的爱人，告诉她你是美好的事物，而不是把我的生活搞得一团糟。“Happier”中几乎令人无法忍受的矫情和肉麻是他对于分手后成熟表现的尝试，但是这些反思甚至不能持续到下一首歌“New Man”。在这首歌中，他非常痛心地描述了他前女友的新男友，“his eyebrows plucked and his arsehole bleached（他修眉还漂白屁眼）” ，“wears a man bag on his shoulder but I call it a purse（肩上背着男士皮包，我更想称之为钱包）”。一比零，Sheeran，你真是好样的！他又将视线转向他的前女友。那个甜美可人的，从前在河边一边读书一边吃薯片的乡村姑娘哪去了？“Now she’s eatin’ kale（现在她吃健身餐）/Hittin’ the gym（泡健身房）/Keepin’ up with Kylie and Kim（追综艺一集不落）”。你的意思是，当她听见Sheeran关于他父亲的教诲的无聊说唱时，她就会关掉音乐，打开“和卡戴珊家族同行”，是吗？

This is not to say that anyone should expect Sheeran—who is popular at weddings and funerals for a reason—to present a nuanced interpretation of gender politics within his songs (though his fans deserve more than depictions of women as angels or traitors). But more than his weak balladry, it's this disingenuous side that rankles. In the nostalgic vein of Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” and Drake’s “Weston Road Flows,” Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill” yearns for a childhood idyll. It’s pure sentimentality, another key to how he uses humble braggadocio and innocence to shore up his moral high ground over shallow girls and unfair beauty standards. On “Eraser,” Sheeran sings, “I’m well aware of certain things that will befall a man like me.” He means booze and drugs, but it’s his inability to reconcile his early underdog status with his titanic popularity that’ll ensnare him. Sheeran wants it both ways: artist and celebrity, nice guy who doesn’t want to alienate his fans with political convictions, anti-consumerist while gagging to dominate pop’s arms race. He’s the guy she told you not to worry about, and he’s wearing your clothes.

以上并不是说，对于Ed Sheeran，这个由于某种原因不论是在婚礼还是葬礼上都非常受欢迎的歌手，每个人都应该期望他在作品中对于性别政治做出细致入微的陈述（尽管他的粉丝值得他倾注更多，而不是简单地将女性形象描写为天使或魔鬼）。但是比起他平庸苍白的歌曲，更令听众愤怒的是他在作品中表现出来的不坦率、不真诚。Lukas Graham的“7 Years”和Drake的“Weston Road Flows”都表现出了浓浓的怀旧风格，Ed Sheeran在“Castle on the Hill”也体现了这样的曲风，他在这首歌中表现了对童年田园诗式无忧无虑生活的怀念与渴望。这首歌完全是无病呻吟，又被他用来占领道德高地，以自己的自负傲慢和纯良无害来评判淳朴无知的女孩，指点当下不公正的审美体系。在“Eraser”中，他唱道，“I’m well aware of certain things that will befall a man like me（我知道有些事情注定发生在我这样的男人身上）”。他所说的“这些事情”大抵指的是酗酒和嗑药，但这些事情的发生确实反映了他在统一自己早期底层社会地位和目前使他陷入困境的巨大名望方面的无能。Sheeran想要两手抓：一边做艺术家，一边做名人；一个不想因为政治观点不同就因此疏远粉丝的老好人；一个反消费主义者，却为在流行乐坛拥有一席之地而高歌猛进。他就是那种你的女友和你说无需担心的男生，然而你不知道的是，他正穿着你的衣服呢。

注：本人非英专，翻译只是兴趣所在，如有错误请在评论区指出或私信我，理性讨论不撕逼不吵架。数字评分和乐评内容代表Pitchfork观点，不代表本人观点（星级和短评代表本人观点，两者间没有必然联系）