[渣翻]Pitchfork Reviews: Dedicated, 7.3/10
原文链接: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/carly-rae-jepsen-dedicated/
On her fourth album, the Canadian pop star is doing what she does best, calibrating lovesick or lovelorn synthpop that’s neither too hot nor too cold—and sometimes, regrettably, only lukewarm.
在她的第四张专辑中，这位来自加拿大的流行歌手交出了她个人生涯最佳的答卷，无论是以相思还是失恋为题材，她的作品都为同类的合成器流行歌曲树立了标杆。Dedicated中的歌曲大多数听起来都不瘟不火——但是可惜的是，有些歌曲稍显平淡。
Carly Rae Jepsen ties up bright, ribbony pop songs with the magnetism of a person who’s a little too modest to be a pop star. She goes for the big feelings, and as a result, inspires near-rapturous devotion. Jepsen’s most ardent fans feel called to defend her, to arm her with a sword, to catalyze the moment that will reveal her magic beyond doubt. With 2015’s E•MO•TION, they nearly had it; I’ll go one further and say that its follow-up, the overflow collection E•MO•TION Side B, is the better listen. Dedicated, Jepsen’s fourth full-length album, returns to her signature combination of self-aware innocence and mature restraint, though its greater purpose is not always quite clear. She’s doing what she does best, calibrating lovesick or lovelorn synthpop that’s neither too hot nor too cold—and sometimes, regrettably, only lukewarm.
Carly Rae Jepsen在她的流行作品中所呈现出的轻盈明快、像缎带一样顺滑的特质深深来源于她自身的魅力——虽然作为一个流行歌手，她实在是过于谦虚低调了。她往往侧重于描写那些较为热烈的情感，所以在这张专辑中，她大肆地赞扬近乎狂热的为爱献身的精神。这也使Jepsen的忠实粉丝们义无反顾地为她辩白，甚至用剑将她武装，将她最具吸引力的一面最大化地催化出来展现给大众。在2015年发行的E•MO•TION中，他们几乎做到了以上几点；但是更进一步来看，我想说，容纳了E•MO•TION承装不下的多余歌曲的续集E•MO•TION Side B，着实拥有更好的听感。在Jepsen的第四张专辑Dedicated中，她再一次展现出自己的标志性特色，将自我意识深处的天真单纯和成熟沉稳的自制自律相结合，但是这使整张专辑的主题变得模糊不清。她交出了她个人生涯最佳的答卷，无论是以相思或是失恋为题材，她的作品都为同类合成器流行歌曲树立了标杆。Dedicated中的歌曲大多数听起来都不瘟不火——但是可惜的是，有些歌曲稍显平淡。
Dedicated takes a more relaxed approach to Jepsen’s well-established penchant for ’80s pop. By her own description, the album began under the working title of “Music to Clean Your House To,” a characteristically unassuming goal. The windshield-wiper synths that open “Julien” or the casual autopilot of “Automatically in Love” point to Jepsen’s other guiding aesthetic: “chill disco,” a mood that vaunts sparkling melodies over writing that can feel short on intrigue. Each of these upbeat yet tasteful jams is sturdy enough to spur you through another load of laundry, and light on the kind of indulgent flourishes that spawned “Run Away With Me” saxophone memes. The total effect is glossy, but the individual moments shine a little less; few lines here have the breathless potency of, “Late night watching television/But how’d we get in this position?”
Dedicated选择了一条相对轻松的捷径来表达Jepsen对于80年代流行音乐的狂热。据她个人描述，这张专辑最初策划的主题是想打造“一张在打扫房间时会听的音乐”，一个相当稀松平常的目标。但是无论是“Julien”开头的雨刷器音效，还是“Automatically in Love”中不经意出现的自动驾驶仪的声响，都点明了Jepsen正在引领一股新的审美潮流：“冷调迪斯科”，它更强调拥有闪耀着金光的好旋律而非歌词创作，这些歌词通常写得直接明了，缺乏引人入胜的神秘婉转。专辑中的每一首歌既积极向上又优美别致，足以让你听了之后活力满满地多洗一筐衣服，也让你无意中发现并包容一种华丽浮夸的音乐风格，“Run Away With Me”中萨克斯管声效使用的一脉相承就是最好的佐证。专辑整体呈现的质感都是光彩夺目的，但是单独每一首歌的表现似乎都欠缺火候；甚至极少数的歌词会让人读来觉得尴尬到窒息，例如“Late night watching television（深夜我们依偎在一起看剧消遣）/But how’d we get in this position?（但是这么快到这一步是否合适？）”
Everything in Jepsen’s world always comes back to love, and in the past, the feeling was usually unrequited. That’s changed now; on Dedicated, love is more assured of itself, and for the first time, distinctly sexy. Rarely has her singing sounded so breathy and astonished. “No Drug Like Me” describes the intoxication of new love as a dry-mouthed truth serum; “The Sound” can play like a plea for spoken commitment, or something altogether more carnal. “Like pressure points my love can ease him in my hands,” Jepsen sings on “Everything He Needs,” an unlikely and lightly risqué flip of “He Needs Me,” the Harry Nilsson-written song performed by Shelley Duvall’s Olive Oyl in the 1980 film Popeye. “Want You in My Room,” a scene-stealing Jack Antonoff production, wields its pitch-shifted hook like a conspiratorial voice disguise. “I’m like a lighthouse/I’m a reminder of where you’re goin’,” Jepsen sings, the kind of clever line that’s often missing here. She’s also used it before, on E•MO•TION’s “All That,” so she must really mean it.
在Jepsen的世界中，爱情是一切事物的原点和终点，尤其是在她的早期作品中，这种爱恋的情绪往往是单相思。但是在Dedicated中，这种境况改变了：爱情本身变得更加自信有力，甚至显得格外性感，这种表达在Jepsen的作品中是前所未有的。她带着轻喘的歌声十分罕见，听起来让人无比吃惊。“No Drug Like Me”将坠入全新恋情的沉醉描述成一剂缓解口干舌燥的解药；“The Sound”像是对爱人作出口头承诺的渴求，其间混杂着一些情欲的元素；“Like pressure points my love can ease him in my hands（压力使然，只有我的爱能将他抚慰）”，在“Everything He Needs”中Jepsen这样唱道。这首歌副歌中十分少见甚至有些不合时宜的采样来自“He Needs Me”，是1980年上映的电影Popeye中的插曲，由Harry Nilsson创作，Shelley Duvall扮演的Olive Oyl演唱。在“Want You in My Room”中，Jack Antonoff的制作似乎更为抢镜，使用了移调效果器的旋律小心翼翼地掩盖了她声音上的缺陷。“I’m like a lighthouse（我就像是一座灯塔）/I’m a reminder of where you’re goin’（提醒你前路的方向）”，Jepsen在这首歌中唱道。专辑中其他类似的歌词都写得聪明灵巧，却常常被人忽视。鉴于她在E•MO•TION中的“All That”中也使用过相同的意象，所以对于这样的表达，她肯定是认真的。
Though an album of coy disco romance is a good thing, at times Dedicated strains in other directions. The pastel EDM-pop bounce of “Now That I Found You” comes closest to the reckless joy of Jepsen’s single “Cut to the Feeling,” a song impossible to improve on. “Happy Not Knowing” takes a more classically CRJ approach to romance with its “please don’t tell me” appeal to a crush, but perhaps the territory is too familiar. “I’ll only go so far/I don’t have the energy/To risk a broken heart/When you’re already killing me,” Jepsen sings, because she’s loved and lost, and she mostly just sounds bummed about it. These should be some of the album’s best songs, but they feel wiped clean of the messy ambiguities that fog up real emotions.
尽管一张专辑中充满时而内敛时而浪漫的迪斯科舞曲也不是什么坏事，但是Dedicated探索的触角也在尽力向不同方向延申。“Now That I Found You”中柔和清淡的EDM风格的弹跳音效和Jepsen的单曲“Cut to the Feeling”有异曲同工之妙——这是一首完美无缺的歌，Jepsen在其中肆意挥洒了自己的愉悦之情。“Happy Not Knowing”是一首传统的卡莉蕾式的情歌，她喜欢用“please don’t tell me”的句式来表达热恋的情感，但是对于听众来说实在是有些腻味了。“I’ll only go so far（但是目前为止我只能离开）/I don’t have the energy（我没有那种魄力）/To risk a broken heart（去冒险感受心碎）/When you’re already killing me（而你已将我的生命夺走）”Jepsen在这首歌中唱道。她已然在爱情中迷失自我，所以在这首歌中她听起来更多的是失望和心碎。上述几首歌应该成为专辑中最出色的几首作品，但是由于歌词的含混不清与模棱两可，歌手想要表达的真实情绪被掩藏在词曲下，像是被迷雾笼罩一般，这也使这些歌曲本身听起来苍白无力。
As with E•MO•TION, Jepsen wrote a lot of songs for this album—more than 100—and ultimately a few too many made the cut. Some of the weakest tracks are swallowed up in their expertly interlocked sequences of pre-chorus and chorus; the verses to “Right Words Wrong Time” feel like afterthoughts. The extra distractions hide potential sleeper hits like the funk-lite of “Feels Right” and the balmy, vulnerable “Real Love,” which deserves to be a standout. But by the time the album ends with last November’s single “Party for One,” it’s been displaced, lost in the shuffle of a transitional album with its heart set but its mind not yet quite made up.
在筹备E•MO•TION时，Jepsen创作了许多歌曲——有一百多首——最终从中挑选了十几首组成专辑。对于一些质量欠佳的歌曲，Jepsen都会娴熟地使用紧密相连的预备副歌与副歌巧妙地掩饰缺陷；例如，“Right Words Wrong Time”的主歌就像是事后加上的一样。尽管这张专辑中的冷门佳曲——无论是拥有“轻放克”风格的“Feels Right”，还是清爽宜人却脆弱敏感的“Real Love”，都或多或少存在着缺陷，但是它们本该在专辑中大放异彩。然而随着专辑以“Party for One”作结，它们迅速被下一首歌的播放取代，埋藏在专辑中堆叠的曲目的角落里，对于从专辑中脱颖而出的期望，它们有心无力。 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。数字评分及乐评内容代表Pitchfork观点，不代表本人观点（星级和短评代表本人观点，两者之间没有必然联系）
