【搬运/翻译】Pitchfork乐评
原文作者：Dan Brooks；原文发表日期：2018年10月21日；p4k评分：满分10分。
The German playwright Bertolt Brecht is credited with the aphorism“a theater without beer is just a museum.” No one can point to where he actually said it, but let us indulge a system of attribution where publication and page are less important than what we feel like Brecht would say. The idea is appealing: that art without a visceral element—without something that hits your gut and intoxicates you—is dead. As much as we like to think about art, art is not for our brains. At nearly every turn, Remain in Light thwarts cognitive sense to appeal to the gut. Or maybe the limbic system? I'm not a doctor—whatever part of human physiology is responsible for getting funky.
德国剧作家贝尔托·布莱希特有一句名言：“没有啤酒的剧院不过是个博物馆。”没人知道这句话具体的出自哪本书的哪一页，但我们先把这个放到一边去吧，别把出处看得那么重要了。这儿有个吸引人的说法：不发自内心的艺术、无法让你陶醉让你心动的艺术，就是死的。我们很喜欢思考艺术，但艺术这东西不是一般人想得明白的。《Remain in Light》几乎时时刻刻都在阻碍你的认知感受触动你的心——或者说大脑边缘系统*？我也不是医生，反正就是能让你感觉到爽的身体器官。
*大脑的一部分，有着影响和产生情绪的功能。
By 1980, the conflict in music between what was thought and what was felt was in full cry. As disco continued to monopolize music you could dance to, rock reached a point of maximum theoretical sincerity. Pink Floyd's The Wall, possibly the least ironic recording of all time, was the No. 1 album in America for 15 weeks. It was finally unseated by Bob Seger's Against the Wind, which was knocked out of the top spot by Billy Joel's Glass Houses. Ostensibly, these were works of deep sentiment. To a generation of punks, though, they were rock at its most bloodless and calculating.
1980年，所思和所感在音乐节的冲突异常猛烈。Disco继续统治着舞曲界，摇滚在理论上达到了最大限度的真情实感。Pink Flyod的《The Wall》大概是有史以来最严肃的专辑，在美国排行榜上连续十五周盘踞榜首。《The Wall》最终让位于Bob Seger的《Against the Wind》，这张专又被Billy Joel的《Glass Houses》踢下榜首。表面上，这些作品都是深情款款，但对朋克一代来说，它们却是最无精打采的摇滚。
Although they were a new wave band, Talking Heads operated within New York's larger punk scene, which was predicated on rejecting the artifice of late-'70s rock. Punk sought a music that was felt and not just performed. And yet, Talking Heads were conspicuously artificial. David Byrne made his approach to both songwriting and performance as unnatural as possible. He wrote Dada lyrics about parking lots and fire. His vocals were marred by cracks and unnatural modulations that thwarted melody. Onstage, his movements gave the impression of nervousness but, like, a performed nervousness: When he danced, he seemed to be making fun of dancing.
虽然Talking Heads是新浪潮乐队，但他们却是在纽约的朋克大环境下发展起来的，这种朋克运动发端于反抗七十年代末期摇滚的匠气与做作。朋克在音乐上追求感受而非演奏。然而Talking Heads的音乐很明显是人为制造的，并非发自肺腑。大卫·拜恩在作词和演唱时都表现得极不自然。他的歌词写的是停车场和火焰，充满达达主义风格；他的歌声被调制成扭曲失真的样子，消解了旋律；在舞台上，他的扭动传达出一种焦虑感——但又像是刻意为之的焦虑；他跳舞的样子就像是要嘲讽跳舞这件事一样。
In short, he acted fake. But his fakery was so consistent, its logic so continuously evident, that it became a convincing public identity. In performance and on record, there was no part of Byrne that was not himself. As a result, his artifice seemed more honest than Seger's verge-of-tears yarling or Pink Floyd's proggy self-pity. The central insight of Talking Heads—what made them not just weird but exciting and relevant—was that their art-house affectation felt more sincere than a lot of American culture.
总之，他就是在做戏。但他演得合情合理，逻辑连贯清晰，反而假戏真做，演成了真实的公共形象。无论是演出还是录音过程中，拜恩都是在做自己。结果就是，他做的戏好像比Seger泪流满面的悲鸣和Pink Floyd前卫风格的自怜更诚恳。Talking Heads最重要的内核就是艺术电影式的装模作样。他们装得诚恳，比美国的很多文化都要诚恳。成功地装模作样让他们不仅仅显得特立独行，还叫好叫座。
The band's progression can be understood as a continual overlaying of artifices. While other punk acts pursued authenticity by stripping down, Talking Heads built up. They first performed as Talking Heads in 1975, opening for the Ramones at CBGB as a trio, with Byrne on vocals and guitar, Tina Weymouth on bass, and Chris Frantz on drums. Shortly before releasing their first studio album, Talking Heads: 77, they added keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison. They began collaborating with producer Brian Eno for More Songs About Buildings and Food in 1978, followed by Fear of Music in 1979. Eno kept pushing the band toward new sounds and instruments until the Remain in Light tour was traveling with 10 musicians in the band.
乐队的发展可以理解为不断堆砌音乐词藻。同时期的其他朋克音乐通过卸去装饰来回归本真，而Talking Heads却要故意换上浮夸的包装。他们第一次以Talking Heads的名义演出是在1975年，在CBGB酒吧给雷蒙斯作登台暖场。当时乐队是三个人：主唱和吉他手拜恩、贝斯手Tina Weymouth和鼓手Chris Frantz。第一张专辑《Talking Heads: 77》发行前不久，键盘手和吉他手Jerry Harrison也加入了他们。从1978年二专《More Songs About Buildings and Food》开始，他们和制作人Brian Eno展开合作，之后1979年又发行了《Fear of Music》。伊诺推动着乐队不断探索新的音效和乐器，到《Remain in Light》专辑巡演时，演出团队已经增加到十个人。
This mass created the impression that Talking Heads was a collective—one that might embark on a familiar song only to arrive somewhere wild and strange. “There is something essential about losing control over what you do,” Weymouth told the Canadian zine Pig Paper in 1977. This would also turn out to be a central insight, as the band increasingly coupled its conceptual experiments with rhythm arrangements designed to make its core members—and its audience—lose control.
这一大帮人给人留下的印象是Talking Heads就像个企业集团——他们的作品可能以熟悉的音乐为根源，但最终做出来的却是些怪东西。“失控是很有必要的。”1977年Weymouth对加拿大的音乐爱好者杂志Pig Paper这样说过。这也就是Talking Heads最重要的内核。乐队大量开展着节奏编排上的概念实验，为的就是让核心成员和听众失控。
Talking Heads' belief that artifice could feel more real than fake sincerity paved the way for future art rock acts, but Remain in Light differs from successors like Laurie Anderson or Life Without Buildings in that you can dance to it. The rhythm arrangements on this album are irresistible. They are the visceral complement to Byrne's conceptual lyrics about air conditioning and his face. This combination of gutsy rhythms and heady words elevates songs like“Crosseyed and Painless”from nonsense to dream logic. What begins as an idea becomes, in its fullest expression, a feeling.
Talking Heads的理念是，故意做戏比假装诚恳要来得更真实。这一理念为他们日后的艺术摇滚实验打下了基础。但《Remain in Light》和Laurie Anderson或Life Without Buildings这样的前辈不同，《Remain in Light》还可以算是舞曲。这张专辑的节奏编排引人入胜。他们是拜恩所谓“空调和他的脸”**之类的概念化歌词的完美陪衬。像“Crosseyed and Painless”之类的歌，本来是在瞎扯淡，但有了强有力的节奏与大胆夸张的歌词相融合，就升华为一种奇妙的逻辑。纯粹的概念，通过充分饱满的表达，最终成为了真情实感。
可能是指Talking Heads歌曲《Air》，里面有“Air...air/ Hit me in the face”的歌词。
The synthesis succeeds due to Byrne and Eno's incorporation of a third, unfamiliar element: Afrobeat, a style of music that became popular in Ghana and Nigeria during the 1970s. The pioneering artist of Afrobeat was Fela Kuti, whose 1973 album Afrodisiac Eno played for Byrne the night they met in 1977. According to Eno, Afrodisiac would become the template for Remain in Light.
他们合成音乐的实验成功了，这要归结于拜恩和伊诺在一种陌生音乐元素上的合作：Afrobeat。这种音乐流行于上世纪七十年代的加纳和尼日利亚。Fela Kuti是Afrobeat先锋音乐家，他1973年出了专辑《Afrodisiac》。1977年拜恩和伊诺相遇的那天晚上，伊诺就给拜恩放了《Afrodisiac》来听。伊诺说，《Afrodisiac》会成为《Remain in Light》的模板。
Afrobeat combined American funk and jazz influences with West-African polyrhythms, a term drummers use to stop people from talking to them at parties. Essentially, a polyrhythm superimposes beats in different time signatures over one another. You can hear this technique in isolation during the opening bars of Kuti's “Why Black Man Dey Suffer,” which puts three sets of triplets over cut time before building to a complete rhythm. Whole dissertations are written about this branch of music theory. Even the simple explanations are impenetrable to people without percussion backgrounds, but the head will bob independently of the twitching feet, and there you have in dancing what the brain refuses to grasp.
Afrobeat混合了美国放客、爵士和西非多重节奏，鼓手经常用这个词来镇住人们派对上的瞎扯淡。本质上来说，多重节奏把不同的节拍叠加在一起。你可以在Kuti的歌曲“Why Black Man Dey Suffer”的开头单独听到这种技巧，这里把三连音叠加在二二拍上，随后构建出完整的节拍。已经有完整的论文来研究这部分音乐理论。即使是简单的释义，如果没有打击乐背景的话，人们也不容易搞懂，但（即使搞不懂）你的头和脚也可以跟着摇摆，跳着大脑无法理解的舞步。
Talking Heads experimented with polyrhythms on 1979's Fear of Music with “I, Zimbra,” speeding them up and maintaining an overarching 4/4 beat. The opening track of Remain in Light, “Born Under Punches,” preserves the frenetic speed but dispenses with beat in favor of rhythm. It bursts into a multilayered guitar, bass, and drum pattern that resists counting but demands dancing, yanking the listener into a cloud of short, sharp noises with only involuntary movements to guide us through.
Talking Heads在1979年的专辑《Fear of Music》中的“I, Zimbra”试验了多重节奏技术，把几种节奏加速，同时维持着起统领作用的四四拍。《Remain in Light》地开场曲，“Born Under Punches”保持着狂乱的速度但为了整体节奏摒弃了一些拍子。这首歌一股脑扑进多层重叠的吉他、贝斯和鼓点音效中，不需要你捋清楚，只需要跟着跳舞就行。这首歌把听众一把扯进一团短促有力的声响之云里，在歌曲里无意识地行进。
Over this background, Byrne bellows: “Take a look at these hands/The hand speaks/The hand of a government man.” Later he adds, “I'm so thin.” These words do not make sense. They mimic the condition of the listener amid the swirl of polyrhythms, though, caught in a moment of reflection that yields no insight but only feelings. It is the sound of stage-two c0caine addiction, when you are always doing something but never know what to do. The hand speaks: We lose control of ourselves, and what we have done becomes our new identity. The elliptical lyrics at the beginning of Remain in Light can be read as an artist's statement: Taking their music in an unpredictable new direction, Talking Heads have found their essence by losing control over what they do.
在这样的音效背景中，拜恩吼叫到：“看看这些手掌吧/手掌在说话/z府官员的手掌。”后来他又说，“我太渺小了。”这些话语没有任何意义，但模拟了听众们在多重节奏的漩涡中的状态，人们陷入沉思，但没有领悟到什么，只有“感觉”。这种声音就像%&#成瘾的第二阶段，这时候你完全不知道要干什么，但就是停不下来手中的活。手掌在说：我们控制不了自己了，我们干的疯事儿反而成了我们的新标识。《Remain in Light》开头隐晦的歌词就像是艺术家的自白：Talking Heads任由音乐在无法预测的方向上乱彪，在“失控”中发现了他们的精髓。
And then there's “Once in a Lifetime,” which remains enjoyable precisely because it resists interpretation. Its “You may find yourself/You may ask yourself” motif makes it clear that it is about experiencing a moment of alienation from your own life and taking stock—but to conclude what? The chorus is about where water is located. Byrne sings it in a call-and-response style with the rest of the band (also a signature feature of Afrobeat) and the ecstatic, congregational atmosphere makes it feel like an answer to the existential questions of the verses. But you cannot say what any of it means. This ineffable quality is what makes “Once in a Lifetime” feel like a moving song about the scope of your whole life no matter how many times you hear it.
专辑中的“Once in a Lifetime”经久不衰，就是因为它拒绝任何解读。从主旨句“你可能发现.../你可能自己问自己说...”可以很明显地看出，这首歌是关于对自身生活的陌生感和反思总结——但要总结出什么？副歌（表面上）说的是水在哪里，拜恩自问自答般歌唱着，乐队其余成员配合着（这也是Afrobeat的一大特点），在欣喜若狂的会众气氛下，这就像是对主歌中存在主义问题的回答。但你说不出这唱的到底是什么意思。正是由于难以言状，“Once in a Lifetime”无论听了多少遍，都像一首动人的歌，测量着你一生的范围。
Although Remain in Light has become an acknowledged classic, it retains a feeling of unfamiliarity. It is tempting to attribute this quality to Byrne's obtuse lyrics, but the album's instrumental arrangements also constitute a break with rock's conventional forms. Weymouth's bassline on “Crosseyed and Painless” crowds staccato bursts of notes into the first half of each measure, leaving the second half empty in a way that defines the percussion pattern. This technique, essential to funk, diverges from rock's standard practice of using the bass to keep time. Perhaps the album's greatest heresy, though, is its total absence of guitar riffs. Like Weymouth, Harrison prefers to use his instrument as a noisemaker. His howling fills on “Listening Wind” lend a foreboding, unpredictable atmosphere to lyrics that are as close as Byrne gets to conventional narrative. These tracks do not hew as strictly to Afrobeat forms as “Once in a Lifetime” or “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On),” but they still manage to introduce a coherent sound that is alien to mainstream rock.
《Remain in Light》虽然已经成了公认的经典，却保留了一份新奇感。人们喜欢归功于拜恩那些晦涩的歌词，但这张专辑的器乐编排也是对传统摇滚形式的大胆创新。“Crosseyed and Painless”中Weymouth的贝斯线将断奏的音符集中到每个小节的前半部分，而后半部分留空，这就给打击乐定下了范式。这种在funk中必不可少的技术，背离了摇滚中用贝斯来定拍子的准则。然而这张专辑中最伟大的“异端”大概是吉他riff完全消失。和Weymouth一样，Harrison更喜欢把乐器当成噪音器。他在“Listening Wind”中填充的吉他声给歌词平添了一种不祥的、难以言状的氛围，和拜恩的唱腔给传统叙事歌词增添的氛围一样。“Once in a Lifetime”或“Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)”这样的歌没有严格按照Afrobeat的形式来，但仍然尝试了不同于主流摇滚的音效。
Without Afrobeat, though, there is no Remain in Light. The central role of West-African polyrhythms in the album's sound draws attention to a curious aspect of its longevity. Could a group of white musicians playing Afrobeat be taken sincerely in 2018? Virtually every genre of American music, including punk and especially rock, is taken from black forms. Afrobeat is not African-American, though; it's straight-up African. The 21st-century sensibility finds something problematic in a band of white art-school types playing West African music. Earlier this year, the Beninese musician Angelique Kidjo released her own version of Remain in Light, which NPR described as “an authentic Afrobeat record” compared to the original. Given how closely Kidjo followed the Talking Heads' arrangements, this description raises questions about what we mean when we say “authentic.”
不过，没有Afribeat就没有《Remain in Light》。西非多重节奏在专辑中发挥着中心作用，这也让人们好奇它能有多强的生命力。如果是在2018年，人们还会把一群玩Afrobeat的白人音乐人当回事吗？朋克也好，特别是摇滚，几乎美国音乐的所有流派都有黑人音乐的成分。但Afrobeat都不是非裔美国人音乐，而就是非洲音乐。一群白人艺术生却在玩西非的音乐，这在敏感的二十一世纪似乎有点不正常。前几年，贝宁音乐人Angelique Kidjo发行了她自己版本的《Remain in Light》，被NPR（National Public Radio，美国国家公共电台）评价为“真正的Afrobeat专辑”——相对于Talking Heads的原版来说。鉴于Kidjo实在极力模仿Talking Heads，NPR的评价引发了争论，讨论“真正的”到底是啥意思。
The success of Remain in Light—undeniable regardless of our ideas about the degree to which artists should respect historically ethnic divisions between musical forms—forces us to reckon with the album's contradictions. Rock is a more welcoming genre today than it was in 1980, and punk has never seemed closer to the perennial danger that it will become a parody of itself. Still, it is hard to imagine a current underground rock band like Joyce Manor taking a turn toward the music of the Nigerian Afropop star Davido without getting laughed into oblivion. The fact that Talking Heads pulled it off so spectacularly, even 38 years ago, is a tribute to their aptitude as students of music.
不管我们认为艺术家应该在何种程度上尊重音乐上的种族划分，不可否认的是，《Remain in Light》的成功让我们不得不仔细思考这张专辑的矛盾之处。比起八十年代，现在的摇滚更具包容性，朋克似乎越来越接近其潜伏已久的危机：沦为对自身的拙劣模仿。即便如此，如果现在的地下摇滚乐队，比如Joyce Manor，突然去效仿尼日利亚的Afropop明星Davido的音乐，那多半要被嘲笑一番，然后就被人们忘掉。但即使是在38年前，Talking Heads还是出色地做到了，这无疑证明了他们作为音乐学生的天赋。
There is something motivational about Remain in Light, not just as dance music but as expression. On “Seen and Not Seen,” Byrne speculates that a man might change his appearance “by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in the back of his mind.” It's an absurd commentary on the nature of vanity, but it also declares a touching faith in artistic willpower—a faith Remain in Light rewards. The album presents such a strange artistic vision, foreign to what came before but operating as though it were the culmination of a long tradition, that it seems to declare the power of weirdness itself. To be not just strange but singular, to reinvent a form in a way that you can dance to, to smuggle beer into the museum: This is the visceral thrill of art. We want to deny it on theoretical grounds, but we can't. So we must revise our theories.
《Remain in Light》作为舞曲已经激情澎湃，作为一种情感表达更是震颤人心。在“Seen and Not Seen”里，拜恩想象一个人可以“通过持续想象理想的面部结构”来改变他的相貌。这是对虚荣心的怪异注解，但也表现出对艺术之力量的深深认可——《Remain in Light》就值得这种认可。这张专辑的艺术视域太奇特了，可以说是前无古人，好像这张专辑就是某种悠久传统的终结一样。正是借着这种独特性，这张专辑大概宣示了“奇特”本身就具有强大的力量。既奇特又伟大，重构出一种你能随之起舞的音乐形式，把啤酒偷运进博物馆——这就是艺术摄人心魄的力量。我们妄图从理论层面否定这一点，但我们是做不到的。我们必须修订一下我们所谓的理论了。
