翻譯：出自微信公眾號(hào)【RollingStone大水花】（若有侵權(quán)自刪）https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RCj9sNRNJRc8fsfBQ01vxQ

So here we are again…again. And honestly, we should have seen this one coming. Of course, Taylor Swift, stuck in quarantine like the rest of us, decided to release a whole new collection of 17 songs as a sequel to her outstanding Folklore, unleashing it unto the world with as little warning as the last one. Evermore may be its own album, but it’s also very much an extension of Folklore – a “sister record,” as Swift calls it. And what better way to give such a songwriting-heavy project a second life? In lieu of the endless coordinated music videos, live shows and photoshoots that have tied each of her last five or so albums under one giant aesthetic umbrella, Swift has doubled down on Folklore’s themes of storytelling and contemporary mythology by, well, writing more songs.

泰勒·斯威夫特又出專輯了！不過說實(shí)話，我們應(yīng)該料到這一次的。當(dāng)然了，她是泰勒·斯威夫特，她和我們一樣隔離在家，于是她決定發(fā)行17首新歌作為《Folklore》的續(xù)集，并且和《Folklore》一樣毫無預(yù)告?！禘vermore》既是自成一體，也是《Folklore》的延伸——用斯威夫特的話來說，是一張“姊妹專輯”。這其實(shí)也是上張專輯的豐富創(chuàng)作獲得第二次生命的最好方式。無數(shù)MV，現(xiàn)場(chǎng)表演，寫真照片的通力合作，構(gòu)建了她此前至少五張專輯的統(tǒng)一風(fēng)格，但在這張專輯里，斯威夫特選擇通過更多的歌曲，將《Folklore》中的說書和當(dāng)代神話繼續(xù)到底。

With Evermore coasting on its older sibling’s tidal wave of success, Swift and her team had even more freedom to do whatever they wanted, and it reflects back in the music. She’s working here again with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, and although Folklore’s moody, “indie”-inspired sound is still the dominant feature of Evermore, there’s room for more variety and experimentation this time around. The wicked country murder ballad “No Body, No Crime,” guest-starring Este and Danielle Haim, rubs elbows with the twinkling chamber-pop track “Gold Rush.” Swift warmly sings against honky-tonk piano in “Dorothea” and then, in the complete opposite direction, artificially distorts her voice on the seething “Closure,” using Bon Iver’s Messina vocal modifier to turn her soft timbre into a barely-contained robotic growl. It’s a refreshing change of pace: Swift’s usual approach to dabbling in new genres or sounds is to go balls-to-the-wall, but on Evermore, she’s just as good at curating these more detailed production flourishes, all with the same contouring and meticulousness as she does with her best lyrics.

隨著上張姊妹專輯的成功，斯威夫特和她的團(tuán)隊(duì)在《Evermore》上有了更多的創(chuàng)作自由，這在音樂上有所體現(xiàn)。她再度和Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, Bon Iver的Justin Vernon合作，盡管《Folklore》獨(dú)立范兒的憂郁聲線依然主導(dǎo)《Evermore》，但后者允許了更多的變化和嘗試。講述殘酷鄉(xiāng)村殺手的歌謠““No Body, No Crime”由Este Haim和Danielle Haim客串，和室內(nèi)流行樂風(fēng)格的“Gold Rush”相映成趣。斯威夫特在杭基湯克鋼琴曲的伴奏下溫暖獻(xiàn)唱了“Dorothea”，然后又風(fēng)格陡變地刻意扭曲嗓音，帶來憤怒的“Closure”，Bon Iver的Messina聲音處理器將她柔軟的聲線變成幾欲發(fā)作的機(jī)械低吼。這是她的突破：斯威夫特以往嘗試新的類型和風(fēng)格，從來是一以貫之，但在《Evermore》里，她精選搭配制作上的吉光片羽，一如她此前打磨歌詞的工整細(xì)致。

Story songs are still the heart of the matter on Evermore, and Swift has a whole new cast of characters to join betty, James, Rebekah and the rest from her prior Long Pond sessions. “‘Tis the Damn Season” introduces Dorothea, a Hollywood actress who returns to her hometown and reunites with a high school flame in a very adult tryst. We get to hear his side of the story in “Dorothea,” as he yearns for her to close the distance between them: “You got shiny friends since you left town/A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now.” But unlike the teenage love triangle that ran through the center of Folklore, there are few neat conclusions to Evermore’s tales. A woman breaks up with her college sweetheart the night he planned to propose; two con artists fall in love and promise an impossible life of stability to each other. On “Tolerate It,” one of Swift’s most damning relationship vignettes to date, one person’s love is met with cruel indifference from their other half. “I wait by the door like I’m just a kid/Use my best colors for your portrait/Lay the table with the fancy shit/And watch you tolerate it,” Swift warbles, making the situation sound, convincingly, like a fate worse than death.

故事歌曲依然是《Evermore》的核心，全新人馬加入了《民間傳說：長(zhǎng)池錄音室》(Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions）中的betty，James, Rebekah等人?！啊疶is the Damn Season”中，Dorothea是一位回到家鄉(xiāng)的好萊塢女演員，和高中時(shí)代的男友有了一段成年人的約會(huì)。在“Dorothea”里，我們聽到男方的版本，他希望她不要那么遙不可及：“你離開家鄉(xiāng)后有了光鮮亮麗的朋友/小小的熒幕是我現(xiàn)在能見你的唯一地方?！?/p>

Granted, none of these stories are executed with more or less finesse than the ones on Folklore. Whether by design, or simply by which songs she decided to put on which album, Evermore’s most revelatory moments come when Swift turns the mythmaking back around to herself. “Marjorie,” the closest thing the album has to a centerpiece, is a brilliant and devastating piece of songcraft, an instant classic in the Swift canon. Anyone familiar with the charity track “Ronan” is aware that Swift can write a damn good eulogy, and here she paints her own grandmother Marjorie Finley as an indelible force, a woman so much like herself yet whose complete story she’ll never be able to tell. “What died didn’t stay dead/What died didn’t stay dead,” Swift sings, steadfast. “You’re alive, you’re alive, in my head.” It’s hard to think of another song that so perfectly captures the delayed tragedy of losing a loved one when you’re too young to see their full worth.

但和貫穿《Folklore》的青春三角戀不同，《Evermore》的故事大都沒有明確的結(jié)局：在大學(xué)男友準(zhǔn)備求婚的夜晚與之分手的女人；兩個(gè)相戀的騙子彼此承諾的鏡花水月。“Tolerate It”是斯威夫特迄今對(duì)戀愛最負(fù)面的描繪之一，講述一方的愛遇到了另一方的冷酷對(duì)待。“我在門口像是小孩一樣等待/為你的畫奉上我最好的色彩/看著你容忍我用堂皇擺盤，”她唱著，唱到人相信那是生不如死的命運(yùn)。誠(chéng)然，這些故事的講述手法沒有比《Folklore》更高級(jí)，但也沒有比《Folklore》更低級(jí)。或許是精心設(shè)計(jì)，或許只是她剛好把把哪首歌放在了哪張專輯，《Evermore》最袒露內(nèi)心的時(shí)刻，來自她為自己創(chuàng)作的神話。整張專輯最接近主打歌的“Marjorie”，作曲強(qiáng)大而精彩，可以直接躋身斯威夫特的最佳之一。熟悉慈善歌曲“Ronan”的人，都知道斯威夫特完全有能力創(chuàng)作出好的頌歌，在“Marjorie”里，她將外婆Marjorie Finley描繪成一位堅(jiān)強(qiáng)的女性，一位像她一樣的女性，但她卻永遠(yuǎn)不能完整講述外婆的故事?！笆湃サ牟⒉痪瓦@樣死去/逝去的并不就這樣死去”，泰勒?qǐng)?jiān)定地唱著?！澳氵€活著，你在我心里活著?！焙茈y找到另一首歌，如此完美地詮釋了遲來的悲?。禾贻p時(shí)失去所愛的人，直到后來才明白他們的珍貴。

If Swift seems hesitant to give her characters happy endings, or endings in general, it may be because she’s still figuring out her own next chapter right on the page. “I was dancing when the music stopped/And in the disbelief/I can’t face reinvention/I haven’t met the new me yet,” she sings on “Happiness,” a track she recorded just a week before the album dropped. It’s a gorgeous, ambient song, reminiscent of Chromatics without the four-on-the-floor beats, and while she’s ostensibly singing about divorce, Swift touches on so much more – nuanced acts of forgiveness, complex personal histories, the ability to visualize and know how a person can look in different shades of light. No doubt Swift is still the master of writing a spiteful kiss-off, but the songs of Evermore are a welcomed step in a more mature direction, the result of months and months of her getting lost in the woods and questioning her way forward. By the time you’re reading this, she may have already found the answer.

如果說斯威夫特不愿給歌中人物幸福的結(jié)局，或給他們?nèi)魏谓Y(jié)局，大概是因?yàn)樗齽?chuàng)作之時(shí)也在探索自己的下一步?！耙魳吠Ａ宋胰栽谔?將信將疑/無法直面重塑/我還未見識(shí)過我的新面目“，她在“Happiness”里唱到。這是她在專輯發(fā)布一周前才錄制的單曲，優(yōu)美的氛圍音樂像是沒有Four On The Floor節(jié)奏的Chromatics樂隊(duì)，盡管表面唱的是離婚，她觸及的遠(yuǎn)不止于此——隱忍的寬恕，復(fù)雜的經(jīng)歷，一個(gè)人的不同面向。斯威夫特?zé)o疑很擅長(zhǎng)分手后來寫歌報(bào)復(fù)，但《Evermore》的歌曲邁向了更成熟的方向，這是她在森林迷路數(shù)月，找尋自己方向的結(jié)果。當(dāng)你讀到這篇文字的時(shí)候，她或許已經(jīng)找到了答案。