来自专栏：TSC的13号报刊亭
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If you expected a Taylor Swift revenge album, you were wrong
如果你期望的是一张泰勒斯威夫特的复仇专辑，那么你要失望了
April 19, 2024 5:01 am(Updated April 22, 2024 11:53 am)
By Ed Power
导语：
The Tortured Poets Department is a unique record - and one of the star's most emotionally poised
苦难诗社是一张独一无二的专辑-也是这名巨星情感最沉稳的作品之一
A new Taylor Swift record is invariably an event of world-shaking proportions. When, for instance, the singer unveiled a pop-up “library installation” in Los Angeles this week ahead of the release of her 11th LP, The Tortured Poets Department, Swifties queued for five hours or more to investigate a display promising a peek into the album’s inner workings.
一张泰勒斯威夫特的新专辑毫无疑问会是震动世界的大事。例如，在她的第十一张录音室专辑《苦难诗社》（The Tortured Poets Department）发行前，这名歌手这周在洛杉矶揭开了一次临时的图书馆快闪活动，她的粉丝排队五个小时甚至更多，只为了一窥其内部装置。
A treasure trove awaited them – worn manuscripts, fountain pens, an old-fashioned typewriter. The vibe was “dark academia,” the online aesthetic inspired by, among other things, the movie Dead Poets Society and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History – a cult novel about stylish undergrads getting up to dreadful deeds amid the creaking bookstacks of an East Coast campus.
他们迎来了一座宝库——破旧的文稿、钢笔、老式打字机。它们营造出了“黑暗学术”的氛围，这种在线的美学灵感来自于一系列作品，例如电影《死亡诗社》和唐娜·塔特（Donna Tartt）的《秘密历史》（The Secret History）——一本围绕东海岸校园嘎吱作响的书架，时髦的大学生们做出可怕行为的邪典小说。
For students of the University of Taylor Swift, there are many secrets – and a whole lot of history – threaded through The Tortured Poets Department, a wonderful and pointedly introverted affair that plunges into a hushed world of heartache and melancholia. It’s one of Swift’s most poised albums yet: its emotions often held in check except when she actively chooses to let loose, at which point volcanic swirls of angst and ennui come roaring through.
对于泰勒斯威夫特大学的学生们来说，《苦难诗社》里穿插着许多秘密以及大量的旧事，精妙绝伦、向内求索，将听众拽入一个充斥着心痛与忧郁的静默世界。这是斯威夫特迄今为止最沉稳的专辑之一：它的情感通常有意被克制，除非当她主动选择释放，届时火山般的焦虑与厌倦便会汹涌爆发。
Sonically, it sits between the gilded pop of 2022’s Midnights and the folksy musings of 2020’s Folklore. Duetting with sad boy rapper Post Malone on opener “Fortnight”, Swift plunges into a gently cooing synthscape, where beats burble and fizz until the track builds to a punchy refrain. Thereafter things shift between several key moods, which seem to speak to Swift’s state of mind across the past 12 months, when her Eras tour conquered all while in the wake of her six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn her personal life pivoted from drama (Matty Healy!) to apparent bliss (getting together with human man-hug Travis Kelce).
在音效上，它介于2022年的《午夜》（Midnights）的镀金流行乐与2020年的《民间传说》（folklore）的民谣沉思之间。在开场曲“十四日”（Fortnight）中，斯威夫特与悲伤的说唱男歌手波兹·马龙（Post Malone）进行了一场二重唱，她沉浸在轻柔的合成器声中，节拍在歌曲推进到强劲的副歌前微微冒泡，嘶嘶作响。此后，音乐在几种关键情绪之间切换，这些情绪似乎反映了斯威夫特在过去12个月中的心态，期间她的时代巡演所向披靡，与英国演员乔·艾尔文（Joe Alwyn）六年的恋情结束，她的私生活从混乱争议（马蒂·希利！）转向人尽皆知的幸福（与美国橄榄球联盟明星特拉维斯·凯尔斯（Travis Kelce）一起）。
Swift has never been one to fix something that isn’t broken and the LP is built around a series of collaborations with her by-now regular wing-men Jack Antonoff and The National’s Aaron Dessner. It’s an often subtle affair that demands time and attention, though Swift is careful to always pack in a powerful hook, as she does on “Down Bad”, a bittersweet cousin-once-removed from Midnights’ “Anti-Hero”. She then pivots into a sort of Enya-meets-Billie Eilish with “So Long London”, starting with a root-raising choral piece and then segueing into a downtempo chamber-pop.
斯威夫特的描写向来有的放矢，这张专辑依旧与固定搭档杰克·安东诺夫（Jack Antonoff）和The National的亚伦·德森纳（Aaron Dessner）合作。创作歌曲是一件妙不可言的事情，通常需要大量精力投入，但泰勒丝总能创造强有力的副歌，就像她在Down Bad中所做的那样，这首歌是《午夜》中Anti-Hero的一个苦乐参半的远房表亲。然后她在So Long London中转向了一种类似恩雅（Enya）与比莉·艾利什（Billie Eilish）碰撞的风格，以一段奠基的合唱曲开场，随后过渡到低迷的室内流行乐。
Throughout it all there is a sense of huge drama waiting to burst through the mannered sheen, a tension that gives the record a fascinating power and which makes it unique in the Swift catalogue. Generally, it is restrained pomp: “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me” is a quasi-acoustic sobathon that taps into the same self-doubt that powered Midnights. Then, at the end, Swift goes stadium indie with Dessner on “Clara Bow”, an epic torch song that crests with a Radiohead-esque riff as it brings down the curtains on a stunning record.
贯穿着这张专辑的是一种巨大的戏剧张力，随时准备突破歌曲中优雅的光泽，这种紧张感赋予了这张唱片迷人的力量，也使得它在斯威夫特的职业作品中独一无二。通常，它是克制的浮华：Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me是一场不加掩饰的痛苦盛宴，与《午夜》中的自我怀疑异曲同工。在专辑末尾，斯威夫特与德森纳合作，在《克拉拉·鲍》（Clara Bow）中进行了一场体育馆式的独立摇滚演出。这首史诗般炽烈的歌通过电台司令（Radiohead）式的重复唱段达到高潮，为一张惊艳的唱片落下帷幕。
Swifties will, of course, want to know how the material relates to the singer’s romantic life. Specifically, whether there are breadcrumbs regarding her split – announced almost precisely a year ago – from Alwyn, her dalliance with the massively irritating Healy, and her all-American romance with NFL star Kelce, with its base notes of apple pie and Fourth of July barbecues.
斯威夫特的粉丝当然会想要知道这些歌曲与这位歌手的情感生活之间的关系。具体来说，包括她和艾尔文的分离中的蛛丝马迹（这则消息在几乎正好一年前被公布），与名声狼藉的希利的调情，以及与NFL球星凯尔斯的举国瞩目的恋情（例如苹果派和独立日派对烧烤等的细节）。
There is indeed much to set nostrils twitching. “Who’s gonna hold you like me?” she wonders on the title track – a line that many will read as directed at Alwyn (the inspiration for “London Boy” from 2019’s Lover). The actor is never explicitly referenced – nonetheless, it’s hard not to hear him as a ghost haunting the LP and lyrics such as “my spine split from carrying us up the hill… how much sad did you think I had?” (from “So Long London”). These aren’t breadcrumbs – Taylor has chucked in the entire loaf.
她在专辑同名曲中写下，“谁会像我一样拥抱你？”这句歌词被很多人理解为指向艾尔文（《爱人》（Lover）（2019）中的London Boy的灵感来源）。尽管这位演员未曾被直接提及，我们也很难不发现他在歌词里的踪迹，例如“我的脊梁因将我们托上高山而断裂...你能想象我有多么悲伤么？”（来自“So Long London”）。这些不只是小细节了-泰勒已经全盘托出。
But she is soon rewinding to her Nashville roots with “But Daddy I Love Him”, a country stomper in which she fights for her right to have a bad-boy paramour (the title is believed to reference a line from The Little Mermaid, which was released in 1989 – the year of Swift’s birth). You can just imagine how these half-hints will go down with the Taylor nation: beginning with the aforementioned “So Long London” (about Alwyn, surely), there’s enough fuel here for years’ worth of tweets, TikToks and YouTube symposiums.
但很快，她就在But Daddy I Love Him中回到了她的纳什维尔根源。这是一首乡村摇滚歌曲，她在其中为自己与坏男孩相爱的权利辩护（这个标题被认为是对1989年——泰勒出生那年——发布的《小美人鱼》中的一句话的引用）。你可以想象这些含糊其辞的暗示会在泰勒的粉丝群体中引起如何反响：从前面提到的《So Long London》（肯定是关于艾尔文的）开始，这里就有足够的料让粉丝们进行多年的tweets、TikTok和YouTube研讨会。
Amid these tidal pools of melancholy, the big sing-along set-pieces stand out. Florence Welch lends her continent-quaking vocals to the power ballad “Florida!!!”. Better yet is 80s disco juggernaut “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart”. Here, Swift sings about putting on a smile while crying inside, and producer Jack Antonoff shouts “yeah!” in the background. Arriving towards the end of a project ripe with scholarly imagery, it is a thrilling proof that, when it comes to high-stakes, emotion-shredding pop, Swift is still one of the most important voices of her generation.
在这些忧郁的浪潮中，那些合唱片段格外突出。弗洛伦斯·韦尔奇（Florence Welch）将她震撼大陆的嗓音献给了这首震撼的芭乐“Florida!!!”。更棒的是80年代迪斯科的集大成者“I Can Do It with a Broken Heart”。在这首歌里，泰勒唱出了内心哭泣却仍强作笑容的感受，制作人杰克·安东诺夫（Jack Antonoff）在背景中大喊“耶！”。在这个张充满特殊意象的专辑结束时，它给出了令人激动的证明-当涉及到至关重要、感情充沛的流行音乐时，泰勒仍然是她那一代人中最重要的声音之一。
The Tortured Poets Department is an aesthetic triumph – who knew books and sad bangers could go together so well? But more than that it is a new chapter in Swift’s ongoing quest for pop perfection and a record brimming with moments to beguile fans new and old.
苦难诗社是一场美学上的巨大胜利-谁能知道书籍与悲伤颂歌可以结合得如此巧妙呢？但除此之外，它也是斯威夫特在完美的流行乐的持续探寻中重要的章节，一张令新旧粉丝都为之着迷的专辑。