The traditional sound of summer music is light-hearted beats and catchy melodies. But this summer, a retro and slightly dark album has emerged as an instant hit.
传统的夏季音乐大都节奏欢快、朗朗上口，然而今年夏天，一张充满复古风，略带暗黑气质的专辑却突然火了。
Ultraviolence, Lana Del Rey’s latest and third album, sold 182,000 copies in the US during its first week (June 17 to 22), according to Nielsen SoundScan. It’s the largest album sale week for a female artist since Beyonce’s self-titled surprise album in December. It also became Del Rey’s first No 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart.
根据尼尔森公司的音乐数据，拉娜?德蕾的第三张最新专辑《超暴力》，在美国发型首周（6月17日-22日）就卖出了18万2千张。这个销量也成为自去年12月碧昂斯发布同名专辑之后，女歌手专辑单周销量第一。同时，《超暴力》也是拉娜?德蕾首张位列《公告牌》200专辑榜单的冠军专辑。
Just about two years ago, when the 28-year-old US singer released her major-label debut album Born to Die, everything about her was the target of critics: her hip-hop-inflected baroque-pop music style, her awkward live performances, her background, and even her physical appearance.
就在两年之前，这位28岁的美国歌手发行首张个人专辑《为死而生》，当时她广受批评：不论是带有hip-hop风格的的巴洛克式流行音乐风格，亦或她蹩脚的现场演出，甚至她的外形与家庭背景都成为众矢之的。
As time went on and the outrage died down, somewhere in between the unexpected success of Summertime Sadness and the sweeping Great Gatsby theme Young & Beautiful last year, the people screaming “Lana Del Rey sucks” changed their tune. She was embraced — and even adored.
而随着时间的推移，媒体对她的各种诟病渐渐褪去，不知不觉间，她的单曲“Summertime Sadness”取得了出乎意料的成功，去年为电影《了不起的盖茨比》演唱的主题曲“Young & Beautiful”亦是横扫千军，那些高喊着“拉娜?德蕾逊爆了”的人们也一改论调。如今，拉娜?德蕾已经为人接受，甚至大受宠爱。
Ultraviolence is very much a response to all of that. It seems that the storm has passed, and now, Del Rey has something to say. It’s an album filled with a deep rage and a strong sense of sarcasm. The hip-hop beats and yelps in the distance, which colored her debut and the follow-up EP Paradise, have gone. Instead, the songs are more structurally complex, muted by a lo-fi vintage rock haze — a “fuzz”, according to Del Rey herself.
新专辑《超暴力》在很大程度上正是对这一切的回应：暴风雨似乎已经平息，轮到德蕾有话要说了。这张专辑充满了深深的愤怒和浓烈的嘲讽。新专辑中，那些曾装点过她第一张专辑与后续EP《天堂》的hip-hop节奏与融在背景里的尖叫都已消失不见 ，取而代之的是更加复杂的编曲，更柔和的低音质音色，以及朦胧的复古摇滚风。用德蕾自己的话说，正是一种“朦胧美”。
There are angry songs, such as Money, Power, Glory, mocking her imitators and knowingly feeding into her critics. There are also melancholic ones, for example, Shades of Cool and West Coast, in which she whines about her failed relationships, or describes the numbness of living in crowded and noisy cities.
这张专辑里不乏表达愤怒的歌曲，比如“Money, Power, Glory”，在这首歌里，德蕾嘲讽了那些模仿她的人，并且故意给评论家留下了话头；与此同时，也有忧郁的小调，比如，“Shades of Cool”与“West Coast”，在这两首歌里，德蕾为她失败的感情经历伤怀哀诉，并描绘了喧嚣、拥挤的大都市里麻木的生活。
You have to give her credit for making a rather cohesive album that works better when listened to as a whole. But what I admire her for the most is that, with her current popularity, Del Rey could have continued to make more accessible music, like her previous works, and become a mainstream and marketable pop singer. Instead, she has chosen a different path, and created this world of her own – a dark, twisted, yet intriguing fantasy.
你不得不为她这张一气呵成的新专点赞，尤其是全部听完这张概念完整的唱片之后。不过，最令人钦佩的还是拉娜?德蕾的个人定位：以她现在走红的程度，德蕾本可以像之前一样，继续创作一些更加大众化的歌曲，成为一名具有商业价值的主流歌手，但她毅然选择了另一条道路，并创造出了专属于自己的世界——一个黑暗、扭曲，却引人入胜的幻境。