【渣翻（请轻喷）：p4k婊叉乐评】88rising<Head in the Clouds> 6.8
写在前面：非音乐专业人士，非翻译专业人士，因而强烈欢迎指出错误hhh
For this 88rising showcase, Joji, Rich Brian, AUGUST 08, and the rest of the label all act like promising pop stars but are often overshadowed by the outside talent they bring along.
88rising is half media brand and half label. Their goal is to build a platform for Asian rappers and singers who’ve adopted the sound of contemporary American hip-hop and reinterpreted it through the lens of their own lives, often to massive viral success. While not all of its roster is from abroad—singer AUGUST 08 is from Los Angeles—most of it is made of young artists from China, Indonesia, and Japan who initially took it upon themselves to create videos and songs that blended mischievous humor and chest-thumping braggadocio in the hopes of maybe one day falling into pop stardom. Head in the Clouds is the final push to that dream, pairing 88’s roster with some of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop right now for a collection of trap anthems, poolside bops, and starry-eyed ballads aimed to infiltrate the Top 100. Unfortunately, only a handful of the album’s 17 tracks stand on their own as singular works; the rest are stiff, boilerplate copies of songs by other artists currently racking up streams.
在这场88rising的首次集体亮相中，Joji（译者注：88rising成员，生于1992，日裔澳大利亚籍歌手/rapper/词曲作者/制作人）、Rich Brian（译者注：88rising成员，生于1999，印尼籍rapper/词曲作者/制作人，曾用艺名Rich Chigga）、AUGUST 08（译者注：88rising成员，非裔美国黑人歌手/制作人）等歌手们都表现得像前途无量的流行明星，但人们往往更在意他们外露的天分与才气。
88rising的性质比较特殊，你可以将它看作半个媒体品牌+半个音乐厂牌（译者注：例如红花会是说唱厂牌，而其曾签约的经济公司摩登天空属于媒体品牌）。88rising集结了一批深受当代美式嘻哈影响、并且倾注入生活体验重新诠释的亚洲rapper、歌手们。其创建的目标就是为这群人提供一个展示的舞台，现在也已经得到了多次极大的“病毒式”成功。尽管旗下成员并不都是非美国籍的歌手（例如AUGUST 08就来自洛杉矶），大多数成员还是由中国、印尼、日本的年轻艺术家构成。他们此前大多已经发布过自制的创意视频与歌曲，将顽皮的幽默与满腔的自夸意味发挥得淋漓尽致，做着终有一天踏入流行明星帝国的美梦。《Head in the Clouds》就是朝这个梦想进发的最后一击，将88的成员们与当下嘻哈乐坛中最突出的一些歌手们（译者注：有BlocBoy JB、Playboi Carti等）搭配在一起，做成汇集了Trap音乐、Poolside波普和Starry-eyed芭乐的精选集，旨在渗透入Billboard榜的TOP 100。
不幸的是，在这张专辑的17首歌中仅有一小部分是值得品味的独立作品；其它的都显得呆板无味，是某些已经占据了潮流、占领了市场的歌曲的模仿品罢了。
The ones that do succeed sound like they were written purely for top-down twilight rides in the summertime. “Peach Jam,” a collab between oddball YouTube personality turned singer Joji and Memphis’ BlocBoy JB is a pulpy ode to sex built around a recurring “Hey-ya!” chant. It acts as one long bridge, the kind of morsel that inspires VIP sections to jump on couches and collectively sing out of tune. And “History,” a solo cut by the droll MC Rich Brian, is further proof of the Jarkata rapper’s knack for melding his low huff of a voice with playful production to build understated hits, as he wistfully looks back on a past fling over bright flute synths and tinkering hi-hats. The lyricism displayed here is nothing special—BlocBoy may take the crown for the most senselessly evocative line when he raps, “You my baby like fetus,” on “Peach”—but the songs are breezy and fun without overextending their reach.
这群确实获得了成功的人们，在专辑里完全像是在描述一场有组织的夏日黄昏旅行。
《Peach Jam》是古怪的个性油管艺人Joji（译者注：没错，那么帅的Joji是由搞笑视频艺人起家的……）与来自孟斐斯（译者注：美国田纳西州城市）的BlocBoy JB（译者注：生于1996年，美国rapper/词曲作者，代表曲有feat Drake的《Look Alive》）的合作曲，是一首黏黏糊糊、庸俗刺激的性的赞歌，由反复吟唱“Hey-ya”的氛围构成。它以一个长bridge的形式呈现，就像一道取悦人的佳肴，能够激起VIP听众们在沙发上跳起来、集体唱得不成调的气氛。
《History》是同样拥有搞笑能量的Rich Brain的独唱作品，进一步证明了这名雅加达rapper将他低沉愠怒的嗓音和幽默嬉闹的音乐制作融合起来的巧妙手法，构成了低调的一击。例如在这首歌中，他加入明快的长笛合成器和“tinkering踩镲”音效来表达对过去一段恋爱的沉湎怀念。
专辑里展示的歌词都没有什么特别的。当BlocBoy JB在《Peach Jam》中唱道“You my baby like fetus”时，他甚至可以获得最无意义的情感歌词的“冠军”。但这首歌确实在他们能力范围内做到了breezy and fun的氛围。
The same can’t be said for the syrupy R&B tracks, primarily handled by AUGUST 08 and 19-year-old singer NIKI. Woozy opener “La Cienega,” named for the major thoroughfare in L.A., is a cliché take on the tedium of fame, erected on blasé lyrics about the “glitz” of “la la land” and a hulking synth line that aims for sensuousness but instead comes off hammy. Later on, “I Want In,” a dedication to willingly losing sight of a lover’s imperfections in a haze of lust, sees AUGUST 08 and NIKI trying to embrace the sounds of caribana and soca to listless results, a duller version of one of PARTYNEXTDOOR’s dancehall-tinged melodies.
不过刚才那些评价并不适用其中那些糖浆味的R&B tracks。它们由AUGUST 08和19岁的R&B歌手NIKI（译者注：88rising女性成员，生于1999，印尼籍歌手/词曲作者/制作人）主导。微醺意味的全专序曲《La Cienega》以洛杉矶一条主要的大道命名（译者注：La Cienega Boulevard），是针对“名气的单调乏味”的老生常谈，建立在厌倦虚幻之地（译者注：原文la la land，也是洛杉矶别称。）之“浮华”的歌词和旨在刺激感官却显得夸张的笨重声效合成器之上。接着，《I Want In》描绘了一场在欲望的迷雾中甘愿忽略爱人的不完美之处的自我牺牲。在曲风方面则见证了AUGUST 08和NIKI对吸收“加勒比狂欢节”风格和“索卡乐”（译者注：加勒比地区的一种音乐）风格作出的尝试，最终呈现为更为慵懒版本的PARTYNEXTDOOR式dancehall-tinged旋律（译者注：雷鬼乐的一种）。
That’s the issue at the core of Clouds: Most of its songs sound too familiar. For an album that was created by 88rising as a means of promoting its talent, it provides very little opportunity for the label’s artists to have their own voice. The big-name features compound this problem, as they dictate the tone of the songs they appear on. The Playboi Carti-led “Beam,” for example, is a lo-fi Murda Beatz-produced banger that would fit in seamlessly on the Atlanta rapper’s latest album, Die Lit, but then Rich Brian shows up and more or less repeats Carti’s opening verse.
全专核心上有一个极大的问题：绝大部分歌曲的旋律都让听众似曾相识。对于作为宣扬88成员音乐天赋的手段的专辑来说，它给予旗下歌手过少的机会去展现自己的特点。由于big name主导了其中所参与歌曲的基调，那些big name特征的存在更加剧了这一问题。例如，由Playboi Carti（译者注：生于1996年，美国rapper/词曲作者/制作人/模特）引导的《Beam》（Playboi Carti×Rich Brain）就是低保真MurdaBeatz式能量歌曲，放在他自己的最新专辑里《Die Lit》也是毫无违和的。不过本来Rich Brain就展现出且或多或少地重复了Carti的开头桥段。
But if there’s one 88-signed act that does stand out on the compilation, it’s Higher Brothers, a quartet of rappers from Chengdu, China. Members MasiWei, DZknow, Psy. P, and Melo have been building a dedicated following in their home country for years now and they get to flex their muscles on tracks “Let It Go” and “Disrespectin,” which both feature the kind of rampageous, hard-hitting production that suits their kinetic brand of hip-hop. “I never look at the past, higher we go,” Psy. P belts on “Let It Go” in a mix of Mandarin and English. Here, Clouds briefly snaps out of its role as a playlist of serviceable summer jams and shows us what makes these artists special—and what the West has been missing out on.
但是如果要说其中有个具有88标志的、凭此从整专中脱颖而出的，那就是Higher Brothers了。他们由四名来自中国成都的rapper组成。马思唯、DZknow、Psy. P与Melo（译者注：以组合形式作为88rising成员，四名成员均来自成都音乐厂牌“说唱会馆CDC”）已经在中国构建了多年专注的追求，并在《Let It Go》和《Disrespectin》中显示了这份力量。这两首都是“暴跳的”、“有力击打的”风格的制作，代表着他们活跃的、精神饱满的嘻哈特质。Psy. P在《Let It Go》中大声地混用普通话和英语唱道：“从来不回头，higher we go”。在这点上，这张专辑暂时跳出了它作为可供使用的“夏日jams”播放列表的角色，并展示给我们：是什么使得这些艺术家与众不同、以及什么是西方世界早已遗失的。
原文来自Pitchfork（by Reed Jackson）：https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/various-artists-head-in-the-clouds/
我的想法：Pitchfork在对于亚洲歌手的评价上，表面化介绍＞探寻创作动机，不过也可以理解。我的看法是，诚然这张专辑具有一定的同质化倾向，但你仍能看见这群深受美国嘻哈熏陶的亚洲青年反过来对西方市场实施输出的一片赤诚，也不妨碍其中有脱颖而出的、能够击中我的作品。我的个人Pick是：《Swimming Pool》、《Midsummer Madness》（其实更推荐KRANE remix版）、《Let It Go》、《Disrespectin》、《Warpaint》（其实更推荐Henry Fong Remix版。部落女将军戎装上阵既视感的渲染更为强烈）、《Head In the Clouds》。哈哈哈哈这喜好好像暴露了什么，毕竟我是马思唯的5年忠实老听众了hhh
