泰勒斯威夫特向乡村音乐告别

For almost a decade, Taylor Swift has been waging, and winning, a war, smiling all the while.

近十年来，泰勒·斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)一直都在一边作战一边微笑，而且不断取得胜利。

Country music has been — was — a natural enemy for her: hidebound, slow moving, lousy with machismo. She could break the rules and make people nervous simply by showing up. And yet country was also a hospitable host body. She faced almost no direct competition there, and it's a genre that embraces success, grudgingly if need be.

乡村音乐一直是——曾经是——她的天敌：它守旧、动作慢、充满大男子主义。她可以打破这些陈规，只凭她的出现就能让人感到不安。然而乡村乐也同样是个好客的东道主。她在这个领域几乎没有直接竞争对手，而且这个音乐类型欢迎成功者，如果有必要的话也可以带上一丝勉强。

Most important, country gave Ms. Swift context. It made her a transgressor, which means even her most benign songs could be read with mischievous intent. From the outside, she looked like a conquering titan. But from the inside looking out, even as the genre's biggest star, she was always something of an underdog, multiplatinum albums and accolades be damned.

最重要的是，乡村乐给了斯威夫特一个语境，令她成为叛逆者，也就是说，就连她最温和的歌都可以被解读为带有恶作剧的意图。从外界看来，她像是一个征服的泰坦巨人。但从内部看来，作为乡村乐中最大的明星，她永远都是某种失败者，不管唱片拿多少白金销量、奖项，都受到诅咒。

That she would one day abandon country has long been clear. It's a big box, and a porous one, but a box all the same. "1989" (Big Machine), though, her fifth album and the first that doesn't at all bother with country, manages to find a new foe.

很早以前，人们就知道她早晚有一天会抛弃乡村乐。它是一个大盒子，虽然通风良好，但毕竟是个盒子。《1989》（大机器[Big Machine]公司出品）是她的第五张专辑，也是她第一张完全没有乡村乐的专辑，它为她树立了新的敌人。

Full of expertly constructed, slightly neuteRed songs about heartbreak, "1989," which is to be released on Monday, doesn't announce itself as oppositional. But there is an implicit enemy on this breezily effective album: the rest of mainstream pop, which "1989" has almost nothing in common with. Modern pop stars — white pop stars, that is — mainly get there by emulating black music. Think of Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber. In the current ecosystem, Katy Perry is probably the pop star least reliant on hip-hop and R&B to make her sound, but her biggest recent hit featured the rapper Juicy J; she's not immune.

《1989》将于周一（2014年10月27日——编注）发行，里面有大量结构娴熟、略带中性色彩的伤心歌曲，它并没有摆出对抗的姿态。但这张给人感觉很温和的专辑有一个毫无疑问的敌人：那就是主流流行乐，《1989》与它格格不入。现代流行歌星——更确切地说，是白人流行歌星——大都是模仿黑人音乐起家的。想想麦莉·塞勒斯(Miley Cyrus)、贾斯汀·汀布莱克(Justin Timberlake)和贾斯汀·比伯(Justin Bieber)吧。在当前音乐的生态系统里，凯蒂·佩里(Katy Perry)或许是对嘻哈乐和R&B依赖最少的流行歌手，但她最近的大热歌曲里也有饶舌乐手杰西·J(Juicy J)献声，她也不能免疫。

Ms. Swift, though, is having none of that; what she doesn't do on this album is as important as what she does. There is no production by Diplo or Mike Will Made-It here, no guest verse by Drake or Pitbull. Her idea of pop music harks back to a period — the mid-1980s — when pop was less overtly hybrid. That choice allows her to stake out popular turf without having to keep up with the latest microtrends, and without being accused of cultural appropriation.

但斯威夫特却完全不受影响；她在这张专辑里没有做什么和她做了什么一样重要。它不是由迪普洛(Diplo)或者Mike Will Made-It制作，也没有德雷克(Drake)或皮特布尔(Pitbull)客串。她对流行音乐的概念回溯到了20世纪80年代中期，那时候流行乐还没杂交得这样厉害。这个选择令她可以纵观流行乐的全局，而不必去追逐最新的小风尚，也不会被指责为“文化盗用”。

That Ms. Swift wants to be left out of those debates was clear in the video for this album's first single, the spry "Shake It Off," in which she surrounds herself with all sorts of hip-hop dancers and bumbles all the moves. Later in the video, she surrounds herself with regular folks, and they all shimmy un-self-consciously, not trying to be cool.

斯威夫特希望置身这些争端之外，这表现在专辑首发单曲《甩掉它》(Shake It Off)的音乐录像里。这是一首活泼的歌，录像中她被各种嘻哈舞者所包围，她自己笨手笨脚地做着每个动作，后来她身周换成了普通人，他们不自觉地摇摆身体，并不是想要摆酷。

See what Ms. Swift did there? The singer most likely to sell the most copies of any album this year has written herself a narrative in which she's still the outsider. She is the butterfingers in a group of experts, the approachable one in a sea of high post, the small-town girl learning to navigate the big city.

看出斯威夫特做了什么吗？这位有可能成为今年唱片销量最高的歌手为自己写下一个故事，在其中她仍然是个局外人。在一群专家中间，她是个笨拙的人，是一群高高在上的人当中可亲的一个，是学着在大城市生活的小镇女孩。

In that sense, the most important decision Taylor Swift made in the last couple of years had nothing to do with music: She bought a pad in New York, paying about $20 million for a TriBeCa penthouse.

在这种意义上，泰勒·斯威夫特在最近几年间做的最重大的决定和音乐没有关系：她在纽约的翠贝卡买了一处公寓，这个屋顶套房花了2000万美元。

It was a molting, the culmination of several years of outgrowing Nashville combined with interest in Ms. Swift that placed her in tabloid cross-hairs just like any other global star.

这是一种蜕变，连续几年，她都处在过度膨胀的纳什维尔的顶点，再加上对她个人的兴趣，这令她和所有全球明星一样，无时无刻不处在小报的关注之下。

But it also afforded her the opportunity once again to be seen as a na?f. In Nashville, she'd learned all the rules, all the back roads. Now, with that place more or less in the rear view, she is free to make the John Hughes movie of her imagination. That's "1989," which opens with "Welcome to New York," a shimmery, if slightly dim celebration of the freedom of getting lost in Gotham: "Everybody here was someone else before/And you can want who you want." (As a gesture of tolerance, this is about 10 steps behind Kacey Musgraves's "Follow Your Arrow.")

但这也给了她机会，让她可以再度被视为一个天真无邪的人。在纳什维尔，她学会了所有规则，所有背后的门路。现在，纳什维尔已经多少被她抛在脑后了，她可以自由自在地拍出自己想象中的约翰·休斯(John Hughes)式电影。这就是《1989》，第一首歌是《纽约欢迎你》(Welcome to New York)，这是一首轻快的歌，对于沉迷在哥谭市的自由表示一丝模糊的庆祝之意：“这儿的所有人以前都是别的人/你可以渴望你想要的人。”（作为一种宽容的姿态，这首歌比凯西·马斯格雷福斯[Kacey Musgraves]的《跟随你的箭》[Follow Your Arrow]后退了大概有十步那么远）。

Ms. Swift hasn't been the type to ask permission in her career, but she has long seen herself as a stranger to the grand-scale fame that New York signifies. "Someday I'll be living in a big ol' city" she taunted a critic on "Mean," from her 2010 album "Speak Now"; now here she is, making the New York spotlight her backlight.

斯威夫特并不是那种在事业发展中要问别人该做什么的人，但她长久以来始终视自己为纽约所代表的盛大名利场中的异类。“有一天我会住进一座巨大的老城市，”她在《贱》(Mean)这首歌里嘲笑一个评论家，这首歌来自她2010年的专辑《现在就说》(Speak Now)；现在她来了，纽约的聚光灯正从背后照亮她。

On this new stage, Ms. Swift is thriving. And crucially, she is more or less alone, not part of any pop movement of the day. She has set herself apart and, implicitly, above.

置身这个崭新的舞台，斯威夫特充满渴望。重要的是，她多少是孤单一人，并不依附当今的任何流行音乐运动。她让自己置身事外，而且，毫无疑问地是置于各种运动之上。

The era of pop she channels here was a collision of sleaze and romanticism, of the human and the digital. But there's barely any loucheness in Ms. Swift's voice. Her take on that sound is sandpapered flat and polished to a sheen. The album, named for the year she was born, is executive produced by Ms. Swift and Max Martin, and most of the songs are written with Mr. Martin and his fellow Swede Shellback. Both men have helped shape the last decade of pop but what's notable here is their restraint. (Mr. Martin also did almost all the vocal production on the album.) Ms. Swift's old running buddy Nathan Chapman produced "This Love," a mournful ballad that would have been at home of the "Hunger Games: Catching Fire" soundtrack, and the only song here that could be mistaken for a concession to country.

她所置身的这个流行时代是一片污秽与浪漫主义的融合，是人类与数码的融合。但斯威夫特的声音里却没有一丝颓废。她把握住这个声音，把它打磨平滑，令它熠熠生辉。这张专辑以她出生的年份命名，由她和马克斯·马丁(Max Martin)共同制作，大多数歌都是马丁与合作伙伴斯维德·谢尔巴克(Swede Shellback)合写。两人对过去十年流行音乐的面貌都有贡献，但这里值得注意的是他们的克制（马丁几乎担任了专辑中所有人声部分的制作）。斯威夫特的老伙伴内森·查普曼(Nathan Chapman)制作了《这份爱》(This Love)，这是一首悲伤的歌谣，假如作为《饥饿游戏2：星火燎原》(Hunger Games: Catching Fire)也挺合适，这也是专辑中唯一一首可能会被认为带有乡村色彩的歌曲。

The best country-defying songs on her last album, "Red" — especially "I Knew You Were Trouble," another collaboration with Mr. Martin and Shellback — were also a move toward forward-sounding pop. Ms. Swift has many charms but stylistic envelope pushing has not always been among them. And yet those songs showed her to be more of a risk taker than she'd ever been, and savvy enough to know her fans would follow.

她的上一张专辑《红》(Red)也是向流行乐前进的一步，其中有几首向乡村乐表示挑战的歌，特别是《我知道你很棘手》(I Knew You Were Trouble)，也是马丁和谢尔巴克合作创作的。斯威夫特有很多种魅力，但并不总是擅长打破音乐类型的界限。然而《红》中的歌曲表明她比以往更乐于冒险，也清楚地知道歌迷会跟随她。

That vanguard attitude, though, isn't to be found on "1989," which is largely filled with upbeat, tense songs on which the singer stomps out much of whatever was left of her youthful innocence. The Taylor Swift of this album is savage, wry, and pointed. The high mark is "Style," which recalls something from the original "Miami Vice" soundtrack, all warm synths and damp vocals. "Midnight/You come and pick me up/No headlights," she oozes at the beginning of the song. By the chorus, she's flirty, but back in the verses, she's skeptical and a little bedraggled.

《1989》中却没有这种先驱者的态度，里面大都是欢快、紧张的歌曲，歌手大步走出了年轻时残余的大部分天真无邪。这张专辑里的泰勒·斯威夫特是凶猛、嘲弄、尖锐的。专辑中的佳作是《风格》(Style)，令人回忆起最早的《迈阿密风云》(Miami Vice)的原声带，全都是温暖的合成器与低沉的人声“午夜/你来带上我/没有照明灯”，她在歌曲一开头慢慢唱着。在副歌部分，她显得轻浮，但回到主歌，她又变得多疑，还有一丝凌乱。

Ms. Swift has often sung in a talky manner, emphasizing intimacy over power and nuance, but on "1989" she uses her voice — processed more than ever — in different ways than before: the coy confidence of how she shifts gears leading up to the bridge in "Shake It Off," slithering out the line, "But I keep cruising," immediately changing the song from gum-snapping glee to powerful release. Or the way she sweetly drags out the long e in "beat" on "Welcome to New York"; or the bratty background chorus chants on "All You Had to Do Was Stay."

斯威夫特经常以一种谈话式的方式唱歌，强调亲密而非力量和细微区别。但在《1989》中，她用了和之前不同的声音方式，比以往更加精心处理：在《甩掉它》里那种开车变速冲上大桥的腼腆自信在歌中蔓延着，“但我在继续巡行”这句突然把这首歌从街头混混的欢乐合唱变成了强有力的释放。还有她在《纽约欢迎你》中用甜蜜的长音唱“beat”这个字，以及在《你只需要留下》(All You Had to Do Was Stay)里不肯服从的背景合唱。

Her most pronounced vocal tweak is on "Wildest Dreams," a sweaty and dark tale of dangerous love. In the verses, Ms. Swift sings drowsily, as if seducing or just waking up: "I said ‘No one has to know what we do'/ His hands are in my hair/ His clothes are in my room." Then, at the bridge, she skips up an octave, sputtering out bleats of ecstasy, before retreating back under the covers.

《最疯狂的梦》(Wildest Dreams)是一个性感黑暗的故事，唱的是危险的爱情，这首歌里她的声音有最显著的改变。在主歌里，她懒洋洋地唱着，仿佛在诱惑，要不就是刚睡醒：“我说，‘没人知道我们在干什么'/他的手放在我的头发里/她的衣服在我房间里。”然后，在过渡段，她的声音升高了八度，迸发出狂喜的诉说，之后又退回到隐蔽之中。

On this album, Ms. Swift's songwriting isn't as microdetailed as it has been, instead approaching heartbreak with a wider lens, as on "This Love":

在这张专辑里，斯威夫特自己写的歌不像以前那样充满细节，而是以更广阔的视角看待伤心，比如《这份爱》：

Tossing, turning, struggled through the night with someone new

辗转反侧，勉强与新人读过长夜

And I could go on and on, on and on

我可以一再这样，一再这样做

Lantern, burning, flickered in my mind for only you

灯罩，燃烧，闪烁在我心里的只有你

But you were still gone, gone, gone

但你还是走了，走了，走了

And while there are certainly references to some of Ms. Swift's high-profile relationships, the album on the whole feels less diaristic than her previous work.

这肯定是和斯威夫特与某位名人的恋情有关，但专辑的整体感觉不像她以前的专辑那样，好像写日记了。

But don't be distracted by for whom the belle trolls; she trolls with glee, and that's what matters. Take the clever "Blank Space," a metanarrative about Ms. Swift's reputation as a dating disaster:

但是别分心去想这个美女唱的是谁；她唱得很欢乐，这才是重要的。听听这首聪明的《空白空间》(Blank Space)吧，这是关于斯威夫特“约会灾星”恶名的元叙事：

Saw you there and I thought

看见你在那儿我就想

Oh my God, look at that face

啊天哪，看这张脸

You look like my next mistake

你看上去就像我的下一个错误

Love's a game, want to plaaaaaay?

爱情就是游戏，想玩吗？

This is Ms. Swift at her peak. It's funny and knowing, and serves to assert both her power and her primness. By contrast, the songs where she sounds the least jaded — "How You Get the Girl," "Welcome to New York" — are among the least effective.

这是巅峰的斯威夫特。它既有趣又世故，强调她的力量，也强调她的一本正经。相比之下，那些听上去最不倦怠的歌，比如《你怎样得到那女孩》(How You Get the Girl)和《纽约欢迎你》是最不动人的几首。

It's hard for Ms. Swift to still sell na?veté; she's too well-known and too good at her job. That's likely at least part of the reason that the bonus edition of this album includes three voice memos recorded by Ms. Swift on her telephone that showcase bits of songs in their early stages. They're there as gifts for obsessives, but also as boasts, flaunting her expertise and also her aw-shucks demeanor. "I Wish You Would" shows her singing without any vocal manipulation, and though the lyrics to "I Know Places" and "Blank Space" changed a bunch from this stage to the final version, it's clear that the melodies were intact, and sturdy, from the beginning.

斯威夫特很难再摆出天真无邪了，她太出名，太擅长自己的工作。至少可能部分是出于这个原因，专辑的附加歌曲部分收入了三首人声小样，是斯威夫特通过电话录下来的，展示她在写歌早期的片段。它们是送给迷恋者们的礼物，但也像是夸耀，炫耀自己的技能，以及她质朴的态度。《我希望你能》(I Wish You Would)展现出她怎样不控制声音地唱歌，尽管《我知道一些地方》(I Know Places)和《空白空间》(Blank Space)的歌词最终版本比起这里的版本改动了很多，但显然旋律从一开始就没怎么改动，非常可靠。

There are a few songs in which production dominates: the two songs written and produced with Jack Antonoff (of fun and Bleachers). "Out of the Woods" and "I Wish You Would," which burst with erupting drums, moody synths and sizzling guitars; and "Bad Blood," which has booming drums reminiscent of the Billy Squier ones often sampled in hip-hop.

还有一些歌是制作占了主导地位，比如杰克·安托诺夫（Jack Antonoff，“有趣”[Fun]乐队和“漂白者”[Bleachers]乐队）创作和制作的两首歌：《树林之外》(Out of the Woods)和《我希望你能》，它们爆发出激烈的鼓点、无常的合成器和嘶声作响的吉他；《坏血》(Bad Blood)这首歌有轰鸣的鼓声，令人想起比利·斯奎尔(Billy Squier)经常被嘻哈乐采样的那些乐段。

But these are outliers. Ms. Swift has always been melody first, and if she wanted to give herself over to a producer and sound of the moment, she could have gone several different, more obvious routes, or even stayed in country, which is as hip-hop inflected as pop is these days. (For the record, there are a few sort-of-modern phrases sprinkled through the lyrics — "this sick beat," " mad love" and the chorus of "Shake It Off," where she squeaks "the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate" — though they are mostly there to underscore just how out of place Ms. Swift sounds singing them.)

但这些都是外围的东西，斯威夫特一向最注重旋律，如果她希望把自己交给制作人和当下流行的声音，那么她可能会尝试其他几种不同的、更明显的方式，甚至有可能留在乡村乐里，如今乡村乐和流行乐一样，都已经深受嘻哈乐影响了（在这张专辑里，歌词中分布着几个有点时尚的句子——‘恶心的节拍'、‘疯狂的爱'以及《甩掉它》的副歌，她尖声唱道“乐手要演奏，演奏，演奏，演奏/憎恨的人要去恨，恨，恨，恨，恨”——但是它们主要都是为了强调斯威夫特唱这些句子的时候有多么脱离时代）。

But by making pop with almost no contemporary references, Ms. Swift is aiming somewhere even higher, a mode of timelessness that few true pop stars — aside from, say, Adele, who has a vocal gift that demands such an approach — even bother aspiring to. Everyone else striving to sound like now will have to shift gears once the now sound changes. But not Ms. Swift, who's waging, and winning, a new war, one she'd never admit to fighting.

斯威夫特做的是几乎不涉及当代的流行乐，目标更为高远，就连真正的流行巨星也很少有人会去渴望这种模式——或者阿黛尔(Adele)除外，她声音的天赋就需要这样的方式。其他人都在努力让自己听上去更有当下的感觉，当下流行的声音变了，他们也得跟着变。但斯威夫特不是这样，她要展开一场新的战争，她要赢，但她永远不会承认自己在打这一仗。