泰勒·斯威夫特达到顶峰了吗？| 经济学人文化

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Culture | Shake it off

文化|摇身一变

英文部分选自经济学人20230420期文化板块

Culture | Shake it off

文化|摇身一变

Has Taylor Swift peaked?

泰勒·斯威夫特达到顶峰了吗？

The musician is at the height of her commercial, but not her creative, power

这位音乐人正处于商业顶峰，而非创造力巅峰

Taylor swift has a strong claim to being the most popular entertainer of the 21st century—and perhaps of all time. Five of the ten most popular albums in America in 2023 were hers, according to Luminate, an analytics firm. Ms Swift’s albums have now cumulatively racked up 384 weeks in the top ten of the Billboard chart, beating a record previously held by the Beatles. She is halfway through the most lucrative concert tour ever. A film version of it grossed over $260m at the box office last year.

泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor swift）绝对有实力成为 21 世纪，甚至也许是有史以来最受欢迎的艺人。根据分析公司Luminate的数据，2023年美国十大最受欢迎的专辑中，有五张出自斯威夫特。目前在公告牌排行榜前十榜单上，斯威夫特的专辑累计上榜周数已达384周，打破了此前由披头士保持的纪录。她还举办了史上最吸金的巡回演唱会，目前仍在巡演中。去年，巡演大电影上映，票房超过2.6亿美元。

On April 19th she released a double album entitled “The Tortured Poets Department: TheAnthology”. Over the course of 31 songs, Ms Swift wields her scalpel and dissects every inch of her recent relationships. Few songwriters have been better at transmuting heartbreak into hits. (“The high”, as she sang on “Blank Space”, has surely always been “worth the pain”.) Unfortunately, on this album, she has eschewed danceable pop for something as downcast as the title implies.

4月19日，她发行了双专辑《苦难诗社：选集》(The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology)，收录 31 首歌曲。斯威夫特挥舞“解剖刀”，剖析了她近来的每一段感情。在把失恋的心碎炼化为热门金曲这方面，很少有词曲作者能比她更胜一筹了。（正如她在《空白格》（Blank Space）中所唱的那样，即使感情破碎带来心碎瞬间，曾经拥有的“快乐时刻”也值得回忆）。遗憾的是，在这张专辑中，她放弃了令人忍不住舞动的流行乐曲，转而选择与专辑名一样充满忧郁色彩的曲风。

Gone are the irresistibly catchy choruses of “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, replaced with dreamy synths, muted drums and languorous vocals. Ms Swift can do melancholy and wistfulnesswell. Yet “The Tortured Poets Department” is mournful without being memorable. For a woman who launched her career as a precocious country-singing teen, her new lyrics sound jarringly immature, with unimaginative rhymes. “Like I lost my twin / Fuck it if I can’t have him,” she sings in “Down Bad”.

《我早料到你是个大麻烦》（I Knew You Were Trouble）和《我们再也回不到过去》（We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together）的副歌朗朗上口，令人难以抗拒，但这样的旋律不再，取而代之的是梦幻般的合成音、低沉的鼓声和慵懒的歌声。斯威夫特能够驾驭忧郁和伤感的曲风。然而，《苦难诗社》只有哀伤，听过就忘。相比于其出道时少年老成的乡村歌手形象，斯威夫特新专的歌词听起来十分幼稚，韵脚也平淡无奇。她在《消沉》（Down Bad）中唱道：“我好似失去了一位孪生姐妹/若无法拥有他，也无所谓”。

It is a sign of her stardom that many Swifties rushed to buy the record anyway: within a day of its release “The Tortured Poets Department” sold 1.4m copies in America. But some are breaking ranks to confess that they think the songs are underwhelming and samey. Is Ms Swift falling into the trap that ensnares those who reach the highest echelons of their fields, from auteurs to chief executives? Perhaps no one—including her songwriting collaborators—wants to tell music’s biggest star that her tunes are bland.

无论如何，许多斯威夫特的粉丝依旧争相购买她的专辑，这足以证明她的巨星地位：专辑发行不到一天，《苦难诗社》在全美卖出140万张。但也有些人公开表示这些歌曲平淡无奇，千篇一律。斯威夫特是否落入了某种巅峰困境?从导演到首席执行官，一旦走到行业顶尖都会遇到同样的问题，似乎无人能够幸免。也许没有人（包括她的歌曲创作伙伴）愿意告诉这位乐坛巨星，她的曲调平淡无奇。

On “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” she boasts that she is “so productive, it’s an art”. Indeed it is quite common for great artists at the height of their fame to release lengthy double albums: think of the Beatles’ 30 songs on the “White Album” or Bruce Springsteen’s 20 on “The River”. But both of those could have benefited from more selective editingand still have become the treasured classics that they are today. For Ms Swift, it is the quality of her output, not the quantity, that has set her apart from her peers.

在《即使心碎满地，我也可以做到》（I Can Do It With A Broken Heart）一曲中，她自诩“创作高效，这是一门艺术”。的确，伟大的艺术家在名声最盛之时发行长篇双专辑是很常见的：例如，披头士乐队在《白色专辑》（White Album）中收录30首歌，还有布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀（Bruce Springsteen）在《河流》（The River）中收录20首歌。然而，这两张专辑若能选择性删减歌曲，依然能作为经典作品流传至今。对斯威夫特来说，她脱颖而出的关键不在于作品数量，而是质量。

Ms Swift’s latest offering is some way short of her usual standard. In one of the songs, she claims to be in “her glittering prime”. Fans both devoted and casual may wonder if the lustre is fading.

斯威夫特的新专在某种程度上有失水准。她在一首单曲中声称自己正处于“闪闪发光的黄金时期”。但无论是铁粉还是路人粉可能都会思考她的光彩是否正在消退。

翻译组：

Cassie，ECNU口译小菜鸡，体制内摸爬滚打教书匠

Trista，女，虽然我是无业游民，但是我并没有骄傲

校对组：

，保持低调

Clover

，怀民亦未寝

小脑袋，努力建设自我支持系统的小翻译

观点|评论|思考

本期感想

Dodo，愿识乾坤大、犹怜草木青的同传Dodo

我认为有些人对泰勒·斯威夫特的作品是否失去了艺术性的看法可能有点偏激。毫无疑问，斯威夫特在商业上取得了巨大的成功，但是商业成功并不意味着作品就不再具有艺术性。

斯威夫特的音乐作品很大程度上反映了她个人的情感和经历。她在歌词中表达了对爱情、人生和自我认知的深刻思考，这些内容与艺术的核心价值密切相关。她的歌曲常常引发人们对当代青年生活、情感体验和社会议题的思考，引发共鸣。艺术是一种多元的表达形式，我们看待泰勒·斯威夫特的作品，也许需要承认其商业成功的同时，也能够欣赏到其所具有的艺术性和文化价值。

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