翻譯：Nomanlandever

Lady Gaga's second record, containing "Bad Romance" and "Speechless", finds her coming into her own as both a songwriter and a pop star.

Lady Gaga的第二張專輯，收錄單曲“Bad Romance”和“Speechless”，作為詞曲作者和流行巨星的她找準(zhǔn)了自身定位。

Remember that "Simpsons" Treehouse of Horror where the Krusty the Clown doll was trying to murder Homer? Turned out the problem was the doll had a switch on its back set to "evil" and with a flick of the wrist, it could be reset to "good." It feels like sometime late last summer, someone flicked a similar switch on Lady Gaga. For about a year, she was nothing but a lot of talk and a badge-- only without the badge. She filled her résumé and interviews with style icon namedrops-- Andy Warhol and his notions on celebrity, the denizens of New York's downtown arts scene, and avant couture designers like Thierry Mugler-- but her singles betrayed none of the artistry that she insisted was part of her package. "Poker Face" had about three big hooks, but next to her other singles-- which ran the gamut from forgettable fluff ("Just Dance") to "Muffin Top" ("LoveGame")-- it seemed like a fluke. Then, between the VMAs and "Paparazzi", she came into her own. And on "Bad Romance", the lead single from?The Fame Monster, she became kind of awesome.

還記得《辛普森一家》里小丑娃娃Krusty想謀殺掉Homer那里的恐怖樹(shù)屋嗎？最后發(fā)現(xiàn)那個(gè)娃娃背上有一個(gè)能激發(fā)“邪惡模式”的開(kāi)關(guān)，手腕一扭，就可以被重置為“善良模式”。感覺(jué)去年夏天晚些時(shí)候，有人重置了Lady Gaga的開(kāi)關(guān)。在過(guò)去一年，她除了是街頭巷尾議論的話題或一個(gè)明星人物其他什么都不是——只是沒(méi)有授予徽章罷了。她的職業(yè)生涯和無(wú)數(shù)采訪中都有多次提及那些大名鼎鼎的時(shí)尚偶像們——Andy Warhol和他對(duì)不同名流的看法、紐約市中心藝術(shù)圈的人物、類(lèi)似Thierry Mugler的前衛(wèi)高定時(shí)裝設(shè)計(jì)師們——但她的單曲絲毫沒(méi)有偏離她一直追求的藝術(shù)性?！癙oker Face”有三個(gè)極佳的hook旋律，但其他遜色的單曲——從全曲都填充著會(huì)被時(shí)代遺忘的糟粕（“Just Dance”）到“累贅歌曲”（“LoveGame”）——這似乎是一首僥幸歌曲。隨后，在VMA現(xiàn)場(chǎng)表演和歌曲“Paparazzi”之間，她找回自我。然后在“Bad Romance”，《The Fame Monster》的首支單曲，她大放異彩。

The rest of?The Fame Monster-- out late last year, while we at Pitchfork were wrapping up our 2009 content-- isn't as strong as its lead single (although the Queen-like "Speechless" comes close), but it at least stakes a claim that Gaga is a potential new Madonna rather than simply a new Katy Perry. If I had to guess, I'd say once she became hideously popular Gaga was able to take more control of her career, the?early result being "Bad Romance", arguably the best pop single and best pop video of 2009. And the video is part of the package: Like Madonna or Prince, it's impossible to separate the song from the performer. But unlike those artists, Lady Gaga isn't particularly attractive, and she uses this to her advantage?by suppressing her vanity and making herself a?slippery?figure. She's still largely unknowable and also almost unrecognizable from moment to moment, as she contorts, disguises, masks and maims her face and body like a Matthew Barney or David Cronenberg creation.

再版專輯《The Fame Monster》——在去年年末發(fā)行，同期我們Pitchfork正進(jìn)行著2009年度的總結(jié)工作——我們發(fā)現(xiàn)其中沒(méi)有任何一首歌可以匹敵首單（“Bad Romance”）的大氣磅礴（盡管Queen樂(lè)隊(duì)風(fēng)范十足的"Speechless"還尚可旗鼓相當(dāng)）。但這至少表明Lady Gaga是一位未來(lái)可期的新生代Madonna，而不是又一個(gè)Katy Perry。如果我猜測(cè)的話，一旦Lady Gaga超級(jí)爆火后，她就能對(duì)自己的事業(yè)有更多的控制權(quán)，“Bad Romance”便是她自我把控的成果，可以說(shuō)是2009年最佳流行歌曲和最好的流行MV。歌曲MV也是她藝術(shù)人格不可分割的一部分：正如Madonna和Prince，根本不可能分開(kāi)看待歌曲與歌手。但與那些藝人不同的是，Lady Gaga并不是特別有魅力，她通過(guò)壓制自己的虛榮心來(lái)樹(shù)立自身優(yōu)勢(shì)，使自己成為一個(gè)神秘莫測(cè)的人物。她幾乎時(shí)刻都無(wú)法被辨認(rèn)出，因?yàn)樗で瑐窝b，打扮，“摧殘”她的全身，如同Matthew Barney或David Cronenberg的作品。

Gaga comments on fame as she becomes more famous: It's in her record titles-- The Fame,?The Fame Monster, "Paparazzi", "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich", "Starstruck".?It's also in her wearable art, and the way she deconstructs her own look-- rigid, robotic dance moves as if she's a puppet on a string, moving in crutches after being damaged by her outsized fictional celebrity in the "Paparazzi" clip. In "Bad Romance" she alters whoever Lady Gaga the Pop Star might be into any number of female types-- at times recalling Britney Spears, Madonna, an Anime character, Angelique, Christina Aguilera, and Amy Winehouse. In that sense, she's a perfect 21st century pop icon-- a regular person willing to manipulate herself into whatever it takes at any given moment to be a star.

隨著Gaga越來(lái)越名聲大噪，她對(duì)“名氣”的看法都體現(xiàn)在她的專輯/歌曲名里——The Fame,?The Fame Monster, "Paparazzi", "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich", "Starstruck"，也體現(xiàn)在她的藝術(shù)穿搭和她自己對(duì)造型的構(gòu)造中——僵硬、機(jī)械的舞蹈動(dòng)作，如同被細(xì)線操控的木偶，在“Paparazzi”MV中，在被虛構(gòu)的超大牌名人傷害后，拄著拐杖移動(dòng)的她。在“Bad Romance”中，她將流行歌手Lady Gaga塑造成各種不同的女性——有時(shí)會(huì)令人想起B(yǎng)ritney Spears, Madonna, 某位動(dòng)漫人物, Angelique, Christina Aguilera或Amy Winehouse。在某種程度上，她就是21世紀(jì)的完美流行巨星——一個(gè)普通人會(huì)傾其所有將自己塑造成超級(jí)巨星。

And yet, unlike the empty famewhores climbing atop the shoulders of reality TV?and tabloid journalism to notoriety, we know next to nothing about her personal life. In that sense, she's the anti-Kanye, the anti-Eminem, and the anti-Winehouse-- the twists and turns of her private life don't inform her art. Rather, she is whoever she wants to be at any time, and her art is as much the manipulation of that image and notions of modern celebrity as it is music or fashion. And it's refreshing to have a big pop star communicating to us from afar, like pop stars used to.

然而，與那些靠真人秀節(jié)目或花邊新聞炒作走紅，最終臭名昭著的女星不同，我們幾乎對(duì)她的私生活一無(wú)所知。在某種程度上，她是反Kanye，反Eminem，和反Amy Winehouse的先鋒人物，一波三折的私生活并未影響到她的藝術(shù)水平。相反，她隨時(shí)隨地都能達(dá)到理想狀態(tài)，她在造型和現(xiàn)代女星人設(shè)上的藝術(shù)造詣絲毫不亞于她的音樂(lè)和時(shí)尚。很慶幸樂(lè)壇又出現(xiàn)一位石破天驚的流行巨星與我們交流，如同黃金時(shí)代的巨星。

Everything about "Bad Romance" is big but oddly clean and direct-- whooshing synths, jarring rhythms, and stratospheric choruses. It's not an earworm so much as something designed to just take over a listener, to force them to pay attention the way Gaga's image seems to have done to people in recent months. Sure, the choruses were also skybound on "Poker Face" and "Paparazzi", but they seemed bigger by working as a counterpoint to other elements of the song-- the odd way Gaga makes her voice go deep and guttural, the terrible sing-speaking she has ideally abandoned. "Bad Romance", on the other hand, has two volumes: 10 and 11. In that sense, it's almost template breaking-- reminiscent of stadium house with Gaga as a new KLF, fucking with us from the inside. (No surprise that it sounds so European either-- it comes across like futurist pop music without any hints of hip-hop's influence.)

“Bad Romance”的一切都很宏大，但卻出奇地干脆和直率——呼嘯的合成器、炸裂的節(jié)奏和升天的副歌橋段。這不是刻意迎合聽(tīng)眾的抓耳旋律，不是類(lèi)似過(guò)去幾個(gè)月Gaga靠奇裝異服的穿搭贏得大眾關(guān)注的手段。當(dāng)然，"Poker Face" 和"Paparazzi"的副歌也同樣的響徹云霄，但它們與這首歌曲里其他元素相比顯得更為龐大——Gaga以一種奇怪的方式使她的嗓音變得低沉，帶喉音，她早已拋棄糟糕的邊唱邊說(shuō)的唱法。在另一方面，?"Bad Romance"有兩個(gè)volumes（實(shí)在不知道這個(gè)volume怎么翻譯）：10和11。從這個(gè)意義上講，這幾乎是突破性的嘗試—— 不禁令人腦補(bǔ)到Gaga加入（英國(guó)樂(lè)隊(duì)）KLF做出的體育館House音樂(lè)。(也難怪這首歌聽(tīng)起來(lái)如此歐洲風(fēng)——它給人的感覺(jué)就像未來(lái)主義的流行音樂(lè)，絲毫沒(méi)有受嘻哈音樂(lè)的影響。)

Elsewhere on?The Fame Monster, she morphs into other stars-- Freddie Mercury on "Speechless", ABBA on "Alejandro", Madonna on "Dance in the Dark", Britney Spears on "Telephone", Kylie Minogue on "Monster", and Christina Aguilera on "Teeth". Yet instead of hopelessly retro, it comes off very modern, in part because U.S. pop and hip-hop is currently drawing heavily from Europop, hi-NRG, and dance music. It's almost as if we're experiencing a sonic present that's whitewashed most of the influence of backbeat sample-based hip-hop-- from Kanye and Cudi to Jason Derülo and the Black Eyed Peas, it's all presets and synths and dance. All of a sudden, Eminem's claim that "nobody listens to techno" seems like a hell of a long time ago.

在《The Fame Monster》的其他歌曲中，她致敬了其他明星——在 "Speechless"中致敬Freddie Mercury, 在?"Alejandro"中致敬ABBA, 在"Dance in the Dark"中致敬Madonna, 在"Telephone"中致敬Britney Spears, 在"Monster"中致敬Kylie Minogue, 在"Teeth"中致敬Christina Aguilera。然而并非無(wú)可救藥的照搬復(fù)古，而是做得非?，F(xiàn)代化。部分原因是美國(guó)流行音樂(lè)和Hip-pop音樂(lè)受到大量歐陸流行樂(lè)，高能量迪斯科，舞曲的影響。我們幾乎像在接受強(qiáng)烈Hip-pop采樣節(jié)拍的音樂(lè)洗禮——從Kanye West到Kid Cudi到Jason Derülo再到the Black Eyed?Peas，都是精心調(diào)制的合成器和舞曲音樂(lè)。忽然之間，Eminem講的“沒(méi)人會(huì)聽(tīng)techno音樂(lè)”都是很久以前的話了。

Where a lot of?The Fame?felt like rote pop with overt "comments" on fame, Gaga's recently acquired actual fame allows her interactions with an audience to become a theatrical experience. Her music, meanwhile, has become subtler, more playful, and more well-rounded, extending the electro-pop bubble she lived in on her debut. And instead of shoehorning references to celebrity into some tracks, she's borrowing elements and templates and simply focusing on quality control. The weird result is that, despite her flitting between personalities and personas, her music feels more like her own here than it did on her debut LP. The songs feel like they were written for Lady Gaga rather than simply for any modern pop star.

《The Fame》里許多機(jī)械式的流行歌曲都不加掩飾對(duì)名氣的看法，而Gaga最近獲得的真名氣得以使她與觀眾產(chǎn)生一種戲劇性的互動(dòng)體驗(yàn)。與此同時(shí)，她的音樂(lè)變得更精細(xì)、更值得玩味、更多元，擴(kuò)展了她出道時(shí)的電子流行口水風(fēng)格的范疇。然而她并未在歌曲里硬塞名人的名字，而是借鑒前人的音樂(lè)元素和模板，專注做出高質(zhì)量音樂(lè)，這樣產(chǎn)生出的奇特化學(xué)反應(yīng)是，盡管她在不同的性格和角色之間切換，但這張專輯比她的出道專輯感覺(jué)更像她自己的音樂(lè)。這些歌曲感覺(jué)就是為L(zhǎng)ady Gaga量身打造的，而不是隨便為現(xiàn)代流行歌手們而寫(xiě)的。

Whether Gaga can keep up the streak is another matter. Maybe she'll get chewed up and spat out in the end, or maybe her chameleonic image changes are just Madonna's career at the speed of the Internet era and we're seeing all of her ideas at once. But all of a sudden, for a brief time at least, she's the only real pop star around.

Gaga能否保持這種勢(shì)頭則是另一回事了。也許最終她也會(huì)斷氣和被人唾棄，也許她變色龍般的藝術(shù)形象會(huì)使她的事業(yè)成為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)時(shí)代的Madonna，我們現(xiàn)在可以隨時(shí)追蹤她的動(dòng)態(tài)。但轉(zhuǎn)瞬之間，至少才近期一段時(shí)間，她是唯一一位真正的流行巨星。