乐评 | 经过多年的探寻,Ariana Grande已经找到了她本真的嗓音-飞碟英语-八卦帝

乐评 | 经过多年的探寻,Ariana Grande已经找到了她本真的嗓音

英乐之声EM 欧美女星 2018-08-30 12:43:00 725

创作不易，用心坚持，欢迎请BaGua喝几杯爱心咖啡！

终于等到了爱莉杏菜A妹的新专辑！发行近两周以来，虽然国内乐迷对这这张专辑似乎并不太买账（豆瓣评分仅刚刚及格），但丝毫不影响《甜味剂》在海外的口碑与商业成绩的双重大爆！不仅在Metacritic里的大评论家们都给出了很多很好的评价，A妹也毋庸置疑地再次横扫各国专辑排行榜。值得一提的是，这张专辑的流媒体首周高达1.267亿，创造了女歌手流行专辑的最高首周流媒体记录！

Pitchfork（戏称“婊叉”）向来以毒舌乐评闻名，但这一次给了A妹新专8.1的高分。形容Sweetener是一张模范性的流行专辑。“焕发着低调的喜悦和新得的爱情。”

本篇乐评语言十分优美，专业度很强，生词也比较多，整体难度比较大，但丝毫不影响我们感受到乐评人的强大水准。

本篇难度：★★★★☆ 4.5

Ariana Grande’s journey from child star to “human cupcake” to heir apparent to the diva throne has been centered around discovering the song that defines her. Though her soprano is instantly recognizable—floating from sultry melismas to whistle singing, elocution be damned—locating her in the hits has been difficult at times. Her last two albums, 2014’s My Everything and 2016’s Dangerous Woman, were solid but musically scattershot, filled with trendy guests and weighed down by her bad-girl alter-ego. For Grande to ascend to the next creative level, she’d need more than just the range.

从童星到“人型纸杯蛋糕”再到天后宝座的最佳继承人，Ariana Grande的这段旅程一直围绕着不断探索能定义“她”自身的歌曲。虽然她的女高音可以被瞬间辨认出来——从性感的装饰音漂流到口哨音，再到应遭谴责的发音清晰度——但有时候很难将“她”的自我从热单中定位出来。她的上两张专辑，2014年的My Everything和2016年的Dangerous Woman，（从商业角度来说）十分扎实，但从音乐角度来说（显得）漫无目的；这两张专辑被塞满了时髦的访客，由她的坏女孩第二人格增加分量。为了使Grande登上创意的更高一层水平，她将需要不仅仅是这个范围内的东西。

Sweetener, Grande’s first album since the 2017 bombing at her Manchester concert, feels more honest and distinct than any of her past work. Perhaps because tragedy has a way of revealing our true selves, the 25-year-old star finally allows herself to just take things as they come. She doesn’t force the heart-wrenching emotion of it all into tearful ballads and message-heavy anthems, but instead lets the low-key joy of the title track radiate across the album. The best parts of Sweetener have her looking for hope and stumbling upon the glow of new love. By the time you reach the interlude about her comedian fiancé Pete Davidson called “pete davidson,” where the word “happy” is repeated 22 times in just over a minute, whatever cynical snapshot of their quickie engagement that may have formed between That Lollipop Photo and reports of Big Dick Energy has fallen away. Let the young diva love in peace.

Sweetener，Grande自2017年曼彻斯特演唱会爆炸案后的第一张专辑，比她之前的任何一张作品都令人感到更加真诚和更加清晰。大概因为悲剧有能力揭示我们真正的自我，这位25岁的明星终于允许自己顺其自然。她并没有逼迫爆炸案令人心碎的情绪全部注入催泪的抒情歌曲或暗示意味浓厚的颂歌，而是让专辑内同名曲低调的愉悦感散发至整张专辑。Sweetener最棒的部分在于她的寻找希望和在新爱的微光之上跌倒。在你听到有关她的喜剧演员未婚夫Pete Davidson的幕间插曲pete davidson之前——在这首歌中“快乐”一词在仅刚刚超过一分钟的时间内被重复了22次——任何关于他们匆匆完事的订婚的，可能于‘That Lollipop Photo’和‘Big Dick Energy’的报道之中形成的，用于挖苦人的快照都已经（从记忆中）消退了。让这位年轻的天后在宁静中恋爱吧！

Grande co-wrote more songs than usual (10 out of 15) and formed a clear bond with Pharrell, who serves as a songwriter and producer across Sweetener’s stronger half. His funk-lite idiosyncrasies set a bright tone and help elevate the record’s more conventional song structures. Grande and Williams leave themselves plenty of room to play around with texture in clever ways, particularly when it comes to layered vocals and skittering percussion. Set to little more than panting, tongue clicks, and keyboard orbs, “R.E.M” finds novel ways for Grande to expand her vocal repertoire. Singing in a stream of consciousness style about the man in her dreams, she flows in and out of R&B crooning, doo-wop vocal runs, gospel harmonizing, cheeky sing-talking, and a surprisingly precise rap flow (“‘Scuse me, um? I love you/I know that’s not the way to start a conversation, trouble”). She doesn’t even need a money note to stamp her mark.

与往常相比，Grande参与了更多歌曲的写作（15首歌中的10首），并且，她与在Sweetener中更强有力的一半歌曲中担任作曲和制作人的Pharrell（法瑞尔·威廉姆斯）形成了明显的羁绊。他轻放克的特点奠定了这张唱片光明的基调并有助于提高该唱片偏向传统保守的歌曲结构。Grande和Williams给他们自己留下了充足的空间，使得他们以聪明的方式玩弄音乐，却不失其谐和统一感，尤其是多层次人声和蜻蜓点水般的打击乐的部分。除了喘息声、弹动舌头声和球形键盘以外，R.E.M.在寻找新奇的方式让Grande拓展她人声的全套本领。她以一缕缕清醒意识的方式歌唱睡梦中的那个男人，口中流动着R&B式的低吟；doo-wop和声向前推进，福音式的和声协调共鸣，伴随着不知羞耻的对话式歌唱和精密得令人惊讶的rap flow（“‘Scuse me, um? I love you/I know that’s not the way to start a conversation, trouble”）。她甚至不需要一张钞票来盖上她独特的印记。

The non-Pharrell tracks come courtesy of past Grande collaborators like Max Martin, ILYA, and TB Hits, and largely tap into the ongoing trap influence on the Top 40. Not one of them is outright filler, but an ode to a toxic ex like “everytime” is markedly less original—the kind of bad-decision-making set to ominous thumping that’s all over the charts. Grande’s got her own new rules, though: She tweaks the daydreaming of Imogen Heap into the throbbing EDM twinkle of “goodnight n go” and turns the melancholy of Drake into a meditation on anxiety with “breathin.” Neither is a direct extension of her work with Williams, but both feel like natural fits on an album all about finding the light.

不出自Pharrell之手的单曲承蒙于Grande已有的合作伙伴，如Max Martin、ILYA和TB Hits，并且很大程度上利用了仍在持续作用于榜单Top 40单曲的trap的影响。他们之中的任何一个都没有包揽全局，但如everytime这样送给不良前任的赞歌显然更不具原创性——这种糟糕的决策招致不祥的重击的种类已布满了排行榜。不过Grande有她自己的规则：她把对Imogen Heap的白日梦拧进了goodnight n go电子舞曲律动的闪烁中，并以breathin将Drake式的忧郁转变成了与焦虑的斡旋。这两首均不是她与Williams工作的延伸，但两首都感觉天然地融入了一张单纯讲述追寻心中光明的专辑。

Grande may have delivered more of a full-album vibe than a bangers-filled juggernaut, but there is at least one career-defining moment here—the song she has been looking for, wrapped in an unassuming package. Sweetener ends with “get well soon,” the sort of freeform, self-help soul ballad you’d maybe expect to round out a Beyoncé opus. Anyone who knows how gracefully Grande handled the horrific events at her Manchester show last year will recognize an equally graceful response to her own emotional aftermath in this song. Channeling all the conflicting voices in her head, Grande sings striking downbeat counter-melodies of “girl what’s wrong witchu come back down.” She soothes herself with her own luscious harmonies, urges fans to take care of one another, and modestly assures that anyone can work their way to the top. Like much of Sweetener, the song is musically sparse but encompasses a kaleidoscope of vocal tones. It is here, four albums in, that the true multitudes of her voice, and by extension herself, blossom.

大概，Grande发行了一整张专辑的情绪氛围，而不是一辆塞满了烟花爆竹的、不可抗拒的重型卡车，但这里至少有一个可以定义她的事业的瞬间——她一直在寻找的歌曲，包装在不装腔作势的外壳里。Sweetener以get well soon结尾——那种结构自由的、劝人自助的、你可能期望会出现在Beyoncé作品里的抒情灵魂乐。任何了解Grande是如何优雅地处理了在她去年曼彻斯特演唱会上出现的可怖事件的人，都会认可这首歌中对她自己情绪上遭遇到影响的同等优雅的回应。虽然脑海中相互冲突的声音翻来覆去，Grande用迷人的强拍唱出了回击的旋律：“女孩，你这是怎么了？快坐回来。”她用她自己性感的和声宽慰自己，鼓励粉丝们相互照顾，并且谦逊地保证任何人都可以通过自己的努力登上人生巅峰。正如Sweetener的大部分歌曲一样，这首歌的伴奏十分简朴，但是包含着人声音调的万花筒。正是在这里，发行了四张专辑的节点，她声音的多样性，通过不断拓展她的自我，绽放开来。