搬運自：微信公眾號【評論搬一堆】（在原文基礎上添加了英語原文與排版調整）?

翻譯：Wendy Lee

校對：Tyler Smith

排版：Ryan-Chopin

Martha Brown goes from Charli XCX band member to pop singer on her debut, tackling intergenerational trauma and the painful path to self-understanding with a melodic bubblegum sound.

Martha Brown 從前是Charli XCX 的樂隊成員，后來通過自己的首張專輯，一躍成為流行歌手。她的聲音優(yōu)美如泡泡糖，治愈代際的心靈創(chuàng)傷，沿著痛苦的道路，通向自我認知。

Before she played synths for?Charli XCX?on?Taylor Swift’s?2018?Reputation?tour, Martha Brown was failing to get by in Los Angeles as a musician transplanted from Melbourne. Her career-aiding spot in Charli’s band saved her from moving home, and she used what she earned from the tour to finance her debut LP,?Look At Us Now Dad.?Although the title might evoke the image of a daughter beaming with pride at having made it, Brown, who performs as?Banoffee, actually uses parts of her debut to examine deeper concepts, like intergenerational trauma and the painful path to self-understanding.

Martha Brown從墨爾本移居到洛杉磯，作為音樂人，一直連糊口都困難，后來，她就在Taylor Swift 的2018年名譽巡演中給Charli XCX 伴奏電子合成器。成為Charli 樂隊的成員，她終于不用再四處流浪，而且她把巡演掙的錢用來制作個人首張LP——《Look At Us Now Dad （老爸，看看我們吧）》。盡管這個名字可能讓人想象出這樣的畫面：女兒驕傲地綻放出笑臉，興奮地要和老爸分享成功的喜悅。但是Brown（演出時的名字叫Banoffee）實際上是在用首張LP檢驗更深的概念，諸如代際間的心靈創(chuàng)傷，自我認知路上的痛苦等。

Enlisting features from electro-pop singer?Empress Of?and rapper?CupcakKe, Brown aims for a melodic bubblegum pop sound with industrial undertones—a well-established trend in queer music. On “Chevron,” a downtempo lament sung at rock bottom, she asks the album’s persistent questions: “What am I doing? Why am I here?” The song arrives at the album’s midpoint, rejecting an easy redemptive arc in favor of a steady landscape of ups and downs. To her credit, Banoffee never settles on answers to those questions but never gives up the pursuit of them, either.

Brown從電子流行歌手Empress Of和說唱歌手CupcakKe那里吸收特點，力求把工業(yè)低音融進優(yōu)美的泡泡糖流行樂——這種融合是queer音樂（一種同性戀音樂流派）由來已久的趨勢?！癈hevron（雪佛龍）”的故事非常悲傷，節(jié)奏較慢，音調也很低。在這首歌中，她問出了一直縈繞于專輯的問題：“我在做什么？為什么我在這里？”這首歌在專輯的正中間，整個故事沒有沿著那種簡單的救贖式弧線發(fā)展，而是一種穩(wěn)定的起起伏伏。值得贊揚的是，盡管Banoffee從未確定過這些問題的答案，可她也從未放棄追問這些問題。

The interludes “I Lied” and “I Let You Down” offer a graceful view into the album’s focus on reconciliation—with relationships, with the self, and with the past. Bookending the album, they contain the same lyrics: Banoffee sings about lying to a dying loved one, telling them that she’s doing well in an effort to spare them worry. While “I Lied” introduces deception into Banoffee’s role as a narrator, “I Let You Down” reframes her lies as promises to herself. Over synths that buzz like insects circling a light, she allows herself the possibility that one day those lies might become truth.

插曲“I Lied（我說謊了）”和“I Let You Down（我讓你失望了）”優(yōu)雅地向我們展示了專輯的主題“和解”——不同的代際關系尋求和解，與自我和解，與過去和解。到專輯結尾，兩個插曲都包含著相同的歌詞：在深愛的人垂死之時，向他說了謊，謊稱自己過得很好，因為不想讓他們擔心。在“I Lied”里，敘述者Banoffee引入了“謊言”，而“I Let You Down”將謊言重塑為Banoffee對自己的承諾。電子合成器嗡嗡地響，像昆蟲正在繞著電燈飛，在合成器的伴奏中，她期待著終有一天那些謊言會變成現(xiàn)實。?

On the album’s second half, Banoffee probes the connection between her own psychological battles and her father’s, whose tumultuous childhood included a forced separation from his alcoholic parents. “Permission” is an intensely Auto-Tuned account of assault, and Banoffee’s quivering voice rises to a broken yell as she flips perspectives from perpetrator to victim. “I was young and never wanted/To touch a man or be a woman.” Despite the cyborgian vocals, the song has a shuddering, human ache, taking a cue from similarly produced tracks on Charli XCX’s?Pop 2?mixtape like “Backseat” and “Lucky.”

在專輯的后一半，Banoffee探究了自己的心理斗爭和爸爸的心理斗爭有怎樣的關系。爸爸的童年非常混亂，被迫跟酗酒的父母分離?！癙ermission（允許）”利用auto-tune記述了種種傷害，Banoffee的聲音顫抖著，音調越來越高，角度從施加者轉為受害者之時，她已經變成了破音般的吶喊?！拔疫€小，從來不想/碰男人，也不想成為女人”。雖然只是聲樂作品，但這首歌飽含人的痛苦，令人顫栗，靈感來自和它類似的兩首歌“Backseat（后座）”“Lucky（幸運）”（都是Charli XCX的混音帶《Pop 2（流行歌曲2）》的曲目）。

On the closing title track, she attempts to wind her own emotional experiences together with her father’s. The song, the longest on the album, addresses her father directly as well as the suffering he inherited: “What was theirs is yours, and now it’s mine.” The placement implies closure, as if the song proves that there’s some new way forward for the two of them. Instead, it introduces the album’s most interesting material right at the end. If she had threaded it more steadily throughout, the album would have been a more keen statement than the respectable pop offering that it is.

專輯最后一曲是同名曲，她試圖將自己的情感經歷和爸爸的情感經歷結合起來，是專輯中最長的曲目。歌中，她直接向爸爸傾訴情感，也直言爸爸繼承來的痛苦：“你曾經繼承了痛苦，現(xiàn)在你又把它傳給了我”。這句話暗示著結束，好像這首歌要證明父女二人面前還有新的道路可走，可是相反，它最后引出了專輯最有趣的部分。如果把這最有趣的部分貫穿專輯始終，專輯就不只是一張不錯的專輯了，更像是一個熱烈的宣言。