搬运国外乐评（包括翻译）

先放个Metacritic的综合评分

滚石杂志（Rolling Stone）

by Rob Sheffield

评分4.5/5

So here we are again. The world was in the middle of the cruelest summer ever, just staggering through late July, when Taylor Swift decided to make it all so much messier — her specialty. In a move that nobody saw coming, she announced a surprise album on July 23rd, less than a year after her career-capping smash Lover. (A year to the day after she dropped “The Archer.”) Like the rest of us, Swift had to cancel her summer, including her LoverFest shows, which would have been next week. Instead, she spent the quarantine season throwing herself into a new, secret project: her eighth album, Folklore. But the real surprise is the music itself — the most head-spinning, heartbreaking, emotionally ambitious songs of her life. It’s a total goth-folk album, mostly acoustic guitar and piano, largely in collaboration with the National’s Aaron Dessner. No pop songs at all. It’s as far beyond Lover as Lover was beyond Reputation. She’s always relished her dramatic creative zigzags, but this is easily her most audacious move, full of story-telling depth she’s never come close to before. Some of us have spent years dreaming Taylor would do a whole album like this, but nobody really dreamed it would turn out this great. Her greatest album — so far.

所以我们又来了。世界正处于有史以来最残酷的夏天，就在7月下旬，泰勒·斯威夫特决定把一切变得更混乱——这是她的专长。7月23日，她宣布了一张令人惊喜的专辑，这距离她成就事业巅峰的《lover》还不到一年。和我们一样，斯威夫特不得不取消了她的夏天，包括她的LoverFest秀，本来应该在下周举行。相反，她在隔离季节全身心投入到一个新的秘密项目中:她的第八张专辑《folklore》。但真正令人惊讶的是音乐本身——她一生中最令人眩晕、心碎、充满感情的歌曲。 这是一张完全的哥特式民谣专辑，主要是原声吉他和钢琴，主要是与Nation's Aaron Dessner合作。根本没有流行歌曲。它超越了Lover，就像lover超越了Reputation一样。她总是享受着自己戏剧性的、创造性的曲折，但这无疑是她最大胆的一步，充满了她从未接近过的故事讲述深度。多年来，我们中的一些人一直梦想着泰勒能制作出一整张这样的专辑，但没有人真的梦想过它会这么棒。这是她最伟大的专辑—目前为止。

NME

This summer, Taylor Swift was meant to headline Glastonbury. In fact, she was meant to be playing a whole host of festivals and shows on an international tour as well as hosting her own two-part ‘Lover Fest’ in America, all in celebration of her seventh studio album ‘Lover’, which was released last August). The global pandemic, of course, meant these plans were scrapped, leaving Swift with bountiful spare time. No longer locked into rehearsals or jetting around the globe performing to tens of thousands, she used these hours to write. The results of these unforeseen quarantine writing sessions have come together on Swift’s new, eighth studio album, ‘Folklore’. She’s uncharacteristically ‘done a Beyoncé‘, announcing the album less than 24 hours before it drops, a stark change to the very deliberate, calculated release schedules we’ve seen from Swift in the past. In a simple statement posted to social media, she acknowledged that she’d usually wait and release the album at the “perfect” time, but said the global situation acted as a reminder to her that “nothing is guaranteed”. These shock release tactics go hand-in-hand with a change in musical direction for Swift; ‘Folklore’ is something totally unexpected from one of the world’s biggest pop stars. Over the course of seven albums, we’ve seen Swift evolve from a fresh-faced, teenage country crossover hopeful to sleek synth-pop chart-juggernaut. Each record has brought with it gradual changes – 2010’s ‘Speak Now’ was rockier and 2012’s ‘Red’ saw more pop-leaning production, and by the time we got to 2014’s ‘1989’ she’d cast the cowboy hat aside entirely for pure pop bangers. On album eight, Swift dives headfirst into the world of folk, alternative rock and indie. It was written in isolation; she remotely teamed up with a handful of her musical heroes – and indie legends – including The National‘s Aaron Dessner (who worked on 11 of the 16 songs), Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon (he makes the record’s only guest appearance on ‘Exile’) and long-time collaborator Jack Antonoff. In her pre-release statement, she claims to have worked with another ‘hero’, the mysterious William Bowery – though no known details exist about him elsewhere and fans have speculated that this is a pseudonym for her brother or boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn. Whoever Bowery is, the results are unexpected, and sometimes astonishing – ‘Folklore’ feels like Swift has travelled to a metaphorical cabin in the woods – albeit one with a very strong WiFI connection – and concocted a gorgeous, relaxed record filled with modern folk songs. Dessner’s fingerprints permeate most of ‘Folklore’. The trickling piano on ‘The 1’ and ‘Mad Woman’ are reminiscent of last year’s The National album ‘I Am Easy to Find’ and ‘The Last Great American Dynasty’ evokes the glitchy production heard on the band’s 2017 album ‘Sleep Well Beast’. These brooding instrumentals are always complemented by Swift’s distinctive vocals and ear-worm hooks, though, a reminder that this is the artist behind some of the biggest songs of the past decade. Meanwhile Bon Iver collaboration ‘Exile’ is a melancholy duet, a slow-burner that eventually erupts into a climax of glittering euphoria filled with chorused vocals and soaring strings reminiscent of Vernon’s fourth Bon Iver album, last year’s ‘i, i’.

今年夏天，泰勒·斯威夫特本应成为格拉斯顿伯里音乐节的头条。事实上，她本应该在国际巡演中举办一系列的音乐节和演出，同时在美国举办她自己的两部分的“情人节”，这一切都是为了庆祝她去年8月发行的第七张录音室专辑《lover》。当然，全球大流行意味着这些计划被取消了，给斯威夫特留下了大量的空闲时间。她不再受制于排练，也不再飞往世界各地演出，她利用这些时间写作。 这些意想不到的隔离写作环节的结果在斯威夫特的第八张录音室专辑《folklore》中得到了体现。她一反常态地“像碧昂斯一样”，在专辑发布前不到24小时就宣布了这张专辑，这与我们过去看到的斯威夫特经过深思熟虑、精心计算的发布时间表形成了鲜明的变化。在社交媒体上发布的一份简单声明中，她承认自己通常会等待并在“完美”的时间发行专辑，但她表示，全球局势提醒她，“没有什么是确定的”。这些令人震惊的释放策略与变化的音乐方向为斯威夫特;Folklore是一个来自世界上最流行的明星之一的完全出乎意料的产物。 在七张专辑的历程中，我们见证了斯威夫特从一个年轻的乡村跨界歌手成长为时尚的合成流行乐巨星。每一张唱片都带来了逐渐的变化——2010年的《Speak Now》更不稳定，2012年的《Red》更倾向于流行音乐，到2014年的《1989》时，她已经完全放弃了牛仔帽，取而代之的是纯流行音乐。在第八张专辑中，斯威夫特一头扎进了民谣、另类摇滚和独立音乐的世界。 它是独立写成的;她与她的音乐英雄和独立传奇进行远程合作，包括全国乐队的Aaron Dessner(他参与了16首歌中的11首)，Bon Iver乐队的Justin Vernon(他是专辑《流放》中唯一的嘉宾)和长期合作伙伴Jack Antonoff。在她发布前的声明中，她声称自己曾与另一位“英雄”——神秘的威廉·鲍威里合作过，不过关于他的其他细节还不得而知，粉丝们猜测这可能是她哥哥或男友、演员乔·阿尔文的化名。 不管鲍威里是谁，结果都是出乎意料的，有时甚至是令人惊讶的——《民间传说》感觉就像斯威夫特去了一个树林里的小木屋——尽管这个小屋有很强的WiFI连接——并且制作了一张充满现代民歌的华丽而轻松的唱片。 德斯纳的指纹渗透了大部分的“民间传说”。《The 1》和《Mad Woman》中缓缓流淌的钢琴让人想起去年的全国专辑《I Am Easy to Find》，而《The last Great American Dynasty》则让人想起该乐队2017年的专辑《Sleep Well Beast》中华丽的制作。这些深沉的乐器总是伴随着斯威夫特独特的声音和耳鸣，提醒着人们这就是这位艺术家在过去十年里创作的一些最伟大的歌曲。与此同时，与Bon Iver合作的《流放》是一首忧郁的二重唱，缓慢的节奏最终爆发为闪闪发光的愉悦的高潮，充满合唱的声音和高昂的弦乐，让人想起Vernon的第四张专辑，去年的《i, i》。

Metacritic

by The Lowdown

评分91

Born of isolation, Taylor Swift’s eighth album, folklore, interrogates the pop star’s self-mythologizing and turns her gaze outward. Created during the ongoing pandemic, Swift collaborated remotely on 11 songs with Aaron Dessner of The National, who shared orchestrations composed inside his own quarantine. The results lean toward modern folk and glitchy experimentation, abandoning pop bombast but not the drama of swelling strings or anxious percussion. The accompanying visuals depict a gloomy summer, and listeners can imagine Swift watching storms barrel across the Atlantic horizon and wandering old-growth forests in half-done braids, alone or with a companion socially distanced beyond the frame. Dropped on 24 hours’ notice without her typically painstaking roll-out, the 16 moody songs delve into “fantasy, history, memory” and find Swift roaming her past loves with fresh, if tired, eyes — but also writing complex fictional scenes beyond her own experience. From a lyrical standpoint, it’s arguably Swift’s most contemplative, ambivalent, and expansive work yet. 《The Lowdown: Born of isolation》 泰勒的八专folklore审视了这位流行歌手的自我神话，并将她的目光转向了外界。Swift是在疫情持续期间创建的，与Nation's Aaron Dessner远程合作录制了11首歌曲，后者在自己的隔离区里共同编曲。其结果是倾向于现代民谣和混乱的实验，放弃了流行的浮夸，但没有了膨胀的琴弦或焦虑的打击乐的戏剧性。伴随的视觉画面描绘了一个阴郁的夏天，听众可以想象斯威夫特看着暴风雨咆哮着越过大西洋地平线，扎成半辫子在古老的森林里游荡，独自一人或与远在画面之外的同伴在一起。这16首忧郁的歌曲在24小时前就被发布了，并没有像往常那样艰苦地推出，这16首忧郁的歌曲深入探索了“幻想、历史、记忆”，斯威夫特用新鲜的、疲惫的眼睛徜徉在过去的爱情中，同时也书写了超越自己经历的复杂的虚构场景。从抒情的角度来看，这无疑是斯威夫特迄今为止最具沉思、矛盾和宏大的作品。 Dessner’s influence is palpable, and his orchestration is consistently gorgeous — an unexpected tone to which Swift responds deftly. Jack Antonoff, Swift’s friend and longtime producer/co-writer, also worked on the record; though still distinctive, Antonoff clearly follows the cloud-covered path set by Swift and Dessner. Swift duets with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on “exile” to elegant effect; the song acts as a contrapuntal of a dissolving romance, the two voices alternating while remaining separate, harmonizing only with themselves. Like most of these songs, “exile” marks maturity: The lyrics are clever but restrained, and the emotions are not only high-pitched but possess complex, shifting depths. This album fits comfortably among what I’ve been spinning this summer: Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY!, Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud, and HAIM’s Women in Music Pt. III — albums full of momentum, contemplation, push-and-pull in equal measure. Swift signals growth both personal and creative throughout folklore. Superficially, perhaps, she drops the F-bomb twice — a transgression against “radio-” and “family-friendly” that she’s never dared before. The first line of album opener “the 1” is “I’m doin’ good, I’m on some new shit” — even as she explicitly passes her hand through an old flame. It’s that self-awareness and willingness to both hold herself responsible and forgive that set these songs apart. “mirrorball” sounds like lost Jimmy Eat World jangle-pop laced with melancholy pedal steel and builds to a stunning bridge where Swift admits: “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try … I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me.” Swift has never sounded so honest, and the scrim between her interiority and position as global pop powerhouse has never been so transparent. 德斯纳的影响是显而易见的，他的编曲一贯华丽——一个意想不到的音调，斯威夫特巧妙地回应。斯威夫特的朋友、长期制作人兼联合编剧杰克·安托诺夫也参与了这张专辑的制作;虽然仍然与众不同，但安托诺夫显然遵循了斯威夫特和德斯纳设定的云雾笼罩的路线。与Bon Iver乐队的贾斯汀·弗农(Justin Vernon)在《流放》(exile)中演唱了优雅的二重唱;这首歌作为一种消解浪漫的对位，这两个声音交替而保持分开，只有他们自己协调。就像大多数这类歌曲一样，《流放》标志着成熟:歌词聪明但克制，情感不仅尖锐，而且具有复杂多变的深度。 这张专辑完全符合我这个夏天一直在旋转的:杰米拉伍兹的遗产!遗产!、瓦沙赫契的《圣云》、哈伊姆的《音乐中的女人》(Pt. III)——充满气势、沉思、推拉的专辑。迅捷标志着民间传说中个人和创造性的成长。从表面上看，她可能两次说了脏话——这是对“广播”和“家庭友好”的违背，这是她以前从来没有过的。首张专辑“The 1”的第一句歌词是“I ' m doin ' good, I ' m on some new shit”——即使她明确地将她的手伸向旧情人。正是这种自我意识和对自己负责和原谅的意愿让这些歌曲与众不同。“镜子球”听起来就像迷失的吉米吃世界棒棒音乐，配上忧郁的踏板钢，构成了一座令人惊叹的大桥。斯威夫特承认:“我从来都不是一个自然的人/我所做的只是努力、努力、努力……我仍然在尽一切努力让你看着我。”斯威夫特从来没有听起来这么诚实，她的内在性和作为全球流行巨星的地位之间的矛盾从来没有这么明显。 Though Swift dons rose-colored lenses for even the darkest heartaches, her perspective at 30 has made her lyricism even more piercing. “I hit my peak at seven,” she sings on a wistful track about a lifelong friendship. “I was too scared to jump in, but I was high … Are there still beautiful things?” On album standout “invisible string”, Swift sings, “Cold was the steel of my ax to grind/ For the boys who broke my heart/ Now I send their babies presents.” She’s so often dealt in retro tropes of riding in cars with and borrowing sweaters from crushes (and that’s still present here), but this banality is fresh and hits harder. In the same song, she credits destiny with uniting her and her true love, but subtly undercuts the cliché — “isn’t it just so pretty to think/ All along there was some/ Invisible string/ Tying you to me?” She understands the myth-making required of every romantic love — and the constant retelling if that love lasts. Until now, Swift has been an excellent narrator of the dramas of young love, big friendship, and staying true to a certain narrow-minded integrity. She has been America’s favorite crazy white girl, setting fire to the love letters and reputations of those who wronged her or erecting pedestals to her current squad or lover. But the only notably pointed finger on folklore comes through “mad woman” (much improved over the pseudo-feminist gloss of “The Man”). Swift seems to have realized that the pain of growing up often comes down to how we navigate the tension between expectations and reality — of our relationships, achievements and setbacks, and our choices. 即使是最黑暗的心痛，斯威夫特也会戴上玫瑰色的镜片，但30岁时的视角让她的抒情诗更加动人。“我在7岁达到人生的巅峰，”她在一首充满渴望的歌曲中唱道，这首歌讲述了一段终生的友谊。“我太害怕了，不敢跳进去，但我太高了……还有美丽的东西吗?”在专辑《看不见的弦》中，斯威夫特唱道:“我斧头的锋利/给那些伤透我心的男孩/现在我给他们的孩子送礼物。”她经常使用复古的比喻，比如和迷恋她的人一起开车，或者从迷恋她的人那里借毛衣(这种情况现在仍然存在)，但这种陈腐却很新鲜，也很受欢迎。在同一首歌中，她把自己和真爱的结合归功于命运，但又巧妙地削弱了陈词滥调——“想起来是不是很美/一直有/无形的线/把你和我绑在一起?”她明白每一段浪漫的爱情都需要创造神话，也明白如果爱情能持续下去，就需要不断地复述故事。 到目前为止，斯威夫特已经是一个出色的叙述者的戏剧年轻的爱情，友谊，并保持一定的正直。她是美国最受欢迎的疯狂白人女孩，烧掉了那些伤害她的人的情书和名声，也为她现在的团队或情人树立了光环。不过，对民间传说唯一值得注意的批评来自《疯女人》(mad woman)(比《男人》(the Man)的伪女权主义粉饰要好得多)。斯威夫特似乎已经意识到，成长的痛苦往往可以归结为我们如何驾驭期望和现实之间的紧张关系——我们的关系、成就和挫折，以及我们的选择。