A few years ago, Beyoncé Knowles was like any other record-breaking pop star in an already crowded field. Then something changed.
几年前，碧昂斯·诺尔斯(Beyoncé Knowles)像其他任何打破记录的流行歌星一样，是本已拥挤的歌坛的一员。然后有些事情发生了变化。
If you've ever seen Beyoncé Knowles astride a concert stage or a red carpet, you know she is a woman with a flair for dramatic entrances. But no previous coup de théatre prepared the world for the arrival of the singer's fifth full-length solo record, "Beyoncé," the "visual album" that airdropped onto iTunes at midnight on Dec. 13, 2013. For months, the music press had seethed with speculation about Beyoncé's delayed record release, with rumors of disastrous studio sessions and dozens of scrapped songs. "There is utter disarray in Beyoncé's camp," the website MediaTakeOut.com hissed. It was an unheard-of turn of events for Beyoncé, whose career had been a testament to, as it were, array: a regal, orderly parade from hit to hit, milestone to milestone, strength to strength.
如果你曾见过碧昂斯·诺尔斯登上音乐会舞台或踏上红毯的情景，你就知道她是个具有戏剧化登场天分的女人。但是之前的轰动并没有让世界准备好迎接她的第五张个人完整长度专辑《碧昂斯》(Beyoncé)，这张“视觉专辑”于2013年12月13日午夜空降iTunes。之前的好几个月，音乐媒体因对碧昂斯专辑的推迟发行众说纷纭，有谣言说录音过程出现了灾难，几十首歌报废了。“碧昂斯的阵营出现了完全的混乱，”MediaTakeOut.com网站发出嘘声。对碧昂斯来说，这是前所未闻的剧变，因为之前她的事业像是有序的皇家阅兵，一首又一首金曲，一个又一个里程碑，她的实力不断增强。

Sure enough, the alleged behind-the-scenes chaos turned out to be the usual behind-the-scenes order, in disguise: While the gossip mills whirred, Beyoncé stealthily recorded 14 songs and shot 17 videos, which she unleashed in that December sneak attack. Purely as a feat of information management, "Beyoncé" was impressive. The National Security Agency couldn't stop its secrets from spilling all over the place; Beyoncé kept the lid on a project which, conservatively, involved hundreds of individuals — studio musicians, cameramen, key grips, personal assistants, even record executives, as a rule the least trustworthy people on the planet. The arrival of all that music, all at once and out of the blue, was an unprecedented shock-and-awe move, which rocked the record industry back on its heels and convulsed the Internet. A single Beyoncé video is capable of staggering the senses; the simultaneous release of 17 of them — an onslaught of sound and spectacle and costumes and choreography and, in the case of a video like the one for "Rocket," stately slow-motion images of billowing silk sheets and water droplets tumbling onto Beyoncé's bare midriff — it was a lot to process. We can only imagine the feelings of Beyoncé's pop diva competitors, whose carefully plotted monthslong album rollouts were instantly rendered quaint, and moot. That whining, whirring sound you heard on Dec. 13, mingling with the strains of "Drunk in Love" — that was Lady Gaga, in her gloomy castle keep, chainsawing a meat dress into sackcloth.
毋庸置疑，所谓的幕后混乱实际上是正常的幕后秩序：在流言满天飞的时候，碧昂斯暗自录了14首歌，拍了17个录影带，在12月份的那次突袭中一下子推出。《碧昂斯》像是一场信息管理的大胜仗，让人印象深刻。国家安全局都无法阻止自己的秘密四处泄露，碧昂斯却能严守自己项目的秘密，保守估计，这个项目涉及几百人——一般来说，录音室乐手、摄影师、道具员、私人助理，甚至包括录音主管都是世界上最不可信赖的人。这些作品突然全部发布是一个前所未有的令人震惊的举措，震惊了唱片业，震撼了互联网。碧昂斯的一个录影带就能让人大开眼界，同时发行17个，更是够人享受很长时间。这些录影带是声音、场面、服装和编舞的猛烈冲击，而《火箭》(Rocket)这样的录影带中有丝绸汹涌飘动、水滴跌落到碧昂斯裸露腹部的慢镜头。我们只能想像其他和碧昂斯竞争流行天后的歌手们有何感受，她们花几个月时间精心策划的专辑发布瞬间变得徒劳无功。12月13日，伴着《醉在爱里》(Drunk in Love)的旋律，你可以听到Lady Gaga哀怨的呼叫，她在自己阴暗的城堡里把一件肉做的连衣裙锯成碎片。
Beyoncé is 32 years old. She was 9 when she began singing with Girls Tyme, the group she formed with friends in her hometown, Houston; when the successor to Girls Tyme, Destiny's Child, first cracked the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, in 1998, Beyoncé was just 16. She never seemed like an ingénue, though: Even as a teenager, she had gravitas. In one of the centerpiece songs on the new album, Beyoncé gazes backwards: "Look at me — I'm a big girl now . . . I'm a grown woman." But the innocence-to-experience cliché doesn't square with Beyoncé's life, or art. From the beginning her message has been professionalism, perfectionism, power — ideals exemplified in her fearsome live performances and dramatized in songs that view romance through the lens of finance. Hits like "Bills, Bills, Bills" (1999), "Upgrade U" (2006) and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (2008) have found Beyoncé figuratively hunched over a balance sheet, weighing the costs of affections dispensed and luxury goods accumulated. She's afit star for our new gilded age, and an apt match, musical and otherwise, for her husband Jay Z, another arch-capitalist. In recent years, Beyoncé has toned down the materialism a bit, but ambition remains her calling card. In the torrid 2011 single "Run the World (Girls)" she sang: "We're smart enough to make these millions/Strong enough to bear the children/Then get back to business." The song is a postfeminist anthem, sure. It's also a business plan that she's followed to a T.
碧昂斯32岁了。她9岁起在女孩时间(Girls Tyme)乐团唱歌，那个乐团是她和朋友们在故乡休斯敦组建的。1998年“女孩时间”的后继者真命天女(Destiny's Child)乐团第一次跻身“公告牌”百大金曲前五名时，碧昂斯才16岁。不过，她似乎从来没经历过天真少女的阶段：甚至在十几岁时，她都很稳重。在新专辑的一首主打歌中，碧昂斯回首过去：“看看我——我现在是大姑娘……是成熟的女人。”但是从无知到成熟的老套路线与碧昂斯的生活和事业都不吻合。从一开始，她传递的信息就是职业素质、完美主义和力量——这表现在她令人畏惧的现场表演中，体现在她透过金钱看爱情的歌曲中。像《钞票，钞票，钞票》(Bills, Bills, Bills, 1999)、《提升你》(Upgrade U, 2006)和《单身女士》(Single Ladies, 2008)这样的热门歌曲让人觉得碧昂斯在俯身看一张资产负债表，权衡付出的感情成本和积累的奢侈品的收益。她是适合我们这个新的镀金时代的明星；不管从音乐还是其他方面，她与丈夫Jay Z都十分般配，因为Jay Z也是业界重要的资本家。近些年，碧昂斯稍稍弱化了物质主义，但野心仍是她的重要特点。在2011年热情的单曲《统治世界》(Run the World)中她唱道：“我们足够聪明，能挣几百万/我们足够强大，能养育孩子/然后还能继续干事业。”这首歌当然是后女权主义的赞歌，也是她严格遵循的事业计划。
In 2014, Beyoncé's grip on the zeitgeist has become a stranglehold. A recent "Saturday Night Live" skit revolved around the gag that Beyoncé-worship has become compulsory in the United States, that Beyoncé refusniks will be tracked down and eliminated by deadly government goons, the Beygency. ("He turned against his country . . . and its queen," boomed the voiceover.) As "SNL" suggests, Beyoncé has become something more than just a superstar. She is a kind of national figurehead, an Entertainer in Chief; she is Americana. Someday, surely, her "Single Ladies" leotard will take its place alongside Mickey Mouse and the Model T Ford and Louis Armstrong's trumpet in a Smithsonian display case.
2014年，碧昂斯对时代思潮的把握变成了一种束缚。《周六夜现场》(Saturday Night Live)最近的一个小品讲的就是碧昂斯崇拜在美国已经成义务了，排斥碧昂斯的人将被致命的政府暴徒“碧机构”(Beygency)追踪并消灭（“他背叛了自己的祖国……和它的女王，”画外音洪亮地说道）。就像《周六夜现场》暗示的那样，碧昂斯已经不只是个超级明星。她是一种国家领袖，是娱乐圈的老大；她是典型的美国事物。毋庸置疑，有一天，她在《单身女士》录影带中穿的紧身连衣裤将和米老鼠、福特T型汽车以及路易·阿姆斯特朗(Louis Armstrong)的小号一起出现在史密森尼博物馆的展柜里。
Historically speaking, this is no small achievement. Black women have always been dominant figures in American popular music, but no one, not even Aretha Franklin, has reached the plateau that Beyoncé occupies: pop star colossus, adored bombshell, "America's sweetheart." Inevitably, Beyoncé is also a flashpoint, provoking ire from naysayers and ideologues of all stripes. In March, Bill O'Reilly decried "Partition," a song that details a Beyoncé-Jay Z tryst in a limousine, for setting a poor example for "girls of color." (Postmarital sex between consenting adults: immoral.) Last month, the black feminist author and activist Bell Hooks told an audience at a New School symposium: "I see a part of Beyoncé that is in fact antifeminist, that is assaulting — that is a terrorist . . . especially in terms of the impact on young girls." There is a growing scholarly literature on Beyoncé; the Women's and Gender Studies department at Rutgers University has offered an undergraduate course called "Politicizing Beyoncé." Beyoncé is, as a cultural studies professor might put it, popular culture's most richly multivalent "text." The question these days is not, What does the new Beyoncé record sound like? It's, What does Beyoncé mean?
从历史角度讲，这绝不是小小的成就。黑人女性一直是美国流行乐坛的主力军，但是没有人，甚至包括艾瑞莎·弗兰克林(Aretha Franklin)，曾达到碧昂斯现在占据的高度：流行歌坛巨星，性感尤物，“美国甜心”。同时，碧昂斯也必然是个导火线，引起了爱唱反调的人以及各种思想家的愤怒。3月份，比尔·奥赖利(Bill O'Reilly)认为《隔离》(Partition)给“深色皮肤的女孩”树立了一个坏榜样。这首歌详细描述了碧昂斯和Jay Z在豪华轿车中的一次约会（成年人的婚后性爱：有伤风化）。上个月，黑人女权主义作家、活动家贝尔·胡克斯(Bell Hooks)在新学院(New School)的一次研讨会上对观众说：“我觉得从某些方面讲，碧昂斯实际上是反女性主义者，有破坏力，是恐怖分子……尤其是从她对年轻女孩的影响方面讲。”有越来越多的关于碧昂斯的学术研究。罗格斯大学的女人和性别研究系开设了一门本科生课程，名叫“碧昂斯政治化”。就像文化研究教授可能说的那样，碧昂斯是流行文化中最具有丰富多重意义的“文本”。如今的问题不是碧昂斯的新专辑听起来如何，而是碧昂斯意味着什么？
Of course, the meaning begins with sound — with the tone and timbre of Beyoncé's voice, one of the most compelling instruments in popular music. Beyoncé has traditionalist skills. She can belt an adult contemporary ballad like Barbra Streisand; she can deliver a fiery gospel testimonial; she can channel Michael Jackson ("Love on Top") or imitate Prince's falsetto ("No Angel"). But she is unmistakably a product of the hip-hop era, a singer who has assimilated the aggression and slippery rhythms of rap into a virtuosic and strange vocal style. We have gotten so used to Beyoncé, it may be hard to grasp what an oddball she is, how different her approach to rhythm, melody and harmony are to those of previous generations. You can hear that eccentricity in the wild timbral shifts and skittering syncopations of "Drunk in Love," a half-sung, half-rapped hit that sounds, in the best sense, like a song Beyoncé is improvising from scratch in real time. Like all innovators, Beyoncé has pushed back boundaries, expanding our sense of what music should sound like. To the extent that we hear Beyoncé as "pop," it's because she has taught us to do so.
当然，意义始于声音——碧昂斯的音调和音质是流行乐坛最引人注目的利器之一。碧昂斯还有传统主义技巧。她能像芭芭拉·史翠珊(Barbra Streisand)那样高歌成人当代抒情歌曲，也能演唱热烈的福音歌曲；她能模仿迈克尔·杰克逊（Michael Jackson，比如《爱情至上》[Love on Top]），也能模仿“王子”(Prince)的假声（比如《非天使》[No Angel]）。但她毋庸置疑是嘻哈音乐时代的产物，她吸收说唱乐的攻击性和变幻的节奏，形成一种艺术性的、奇怪的演唱风格。我们太习惯于碧昂斯的唱腔了，所以可能没有想过她其实是个多么古怪的歌手，她对节奏、旋律和和声的把握与之前几代音乐人是多么不同。在《醉在爱里》狂野的多音色变化和跳跃的切分音中，你能感受到那种古怪。这首半演唱半说唱的热门歌曲听起来像是碧昂斯从头即兴创作的一首歌。和所有的创新者一样，碧昂斯打破界线，扩展了我们对音乐听起来应该是怎样的看法。以至于我们觉得碧昂斯就是“流行音乐”，因为她教我们这样认为。
She's taught the world to see music differently, too. The 17 videos for her latest album capture the star in a head-spinning variety of attitudes and alter-egos: as a beauty pageant contestant; as a moll with a flapper haircut; as a roller-disco queen; as the leader of a militant street mob with her hair dyed green; as a Houston homegirl, vamping on a street in the city's hardscrabble Third Ward, with a nasty-looking dog on a leash; as a stripper, an ardent lover, a wife; and, in "Blue," as an earth-mother-with-child, strolling a sun-dazzled strip of Brazilian coastline with her daughter, Blue Ivy. More than three decades after the rise of MTV, there are still those who view music videos as debased or "inauthentic." But Beyoncé's music is inseparable from her movie-star magnetism: the way she stares down a camera, strikes a pose, wears her clothes and, especially, the way she dances. And why not? Popular music has always been an audiovisual medium. If Beyoncé is the dominant figure in 21st-century music, perhaps it's because pop has circumnavigated back to its 19th-century vaudevillian roots, to a time before disembodied voices came to us through hi-fi speakers or noise-canceling headphones, when music was, exclusively, a performing art. Beyoncé is the greatest old-fashioned singer and hoofer, the supreme show-woman, in an era when, once again, we've learned to love a splashy musical show.
她还教这个世界用不同的眼光看音乐。在她最新专辑的17个录影带中，这位巨星表现出令人头晕目眩的各种态度和人格：选美比赛选手；发型轻佻的妓女；旱冰迪斯科女王；好斗的绿发街头暴徒头目；休斯敦居家女孩，在该市贫穷的第三区的街头色诱男人，手里牵着一只长相凶恶的小狗；脱衣舞女，热烈的情人，妻子；在《蓝色》(Blue)中，扮演一位能生儿育女的母亲，和女儿布鲁·艾薇(Blue Ivy)在阳光炫目的巴西海岸漫步。音乐录影带崛起30多年来，仍有人认为它低劣、“不真实”，但是碧昂斯的音乐和她电影明星般的魅力是不可分割的：她注视摄像机、摆姿势、穿衣服、特别是跳舞的方式，特别吸引人。为什么不呢？流行音乐一直都是一种视听媒体。如果说碧昂斯是21世纪音乐界的主导人物，也许是因为流行音乐又回归到了19世纪轻歌舞剧的根源，回到了我们通过高保真音响或降噪耳机聆听没有实体的声音之前的时代，那时音乐是唯一的表演艺术。碧昂斯是最优秀的传统歌手和职业舞蹈家，是无与伦比的表演歌手，在这个年代，我们再次学会了热爱炫目的音乐表演。
Of course, she's more than that. Literally and figuratively, Beyoncé is a moving target — it's as difficult to get a fix on her as it would be to keep up with her on the dance floor. Beyoncé represents down-home earthiness and impossible glamour, soul-woman warmth and diva hauteur, a nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic and garish 1 percent excess. Her new album is sexed-up to the point of lewdness, with punch lines about body fluids on evening wear and intimations of rough sex. Yet the sex — in the limo, in the kitchen, everywhere, apparently, but the bedroom — is married sex, family-values sex, which, the album makes clear, produced a bouncing baby girl, a result perhaps even Bill O'Reilly can feel good about.
当然，她不只如此。不管从字面意思还是象征意义上讲，碧昂斯都是一个移动靶——你很难定位她，也很难在舞池上跟上她的步伐。碧昂斯既有美国南方的质朴，也有不可思议的魅力、黑人女性的温暖和天后的傲慢——专注的职业精神和1%的过分炫耀。她的新专辑对性欲的挑逗达到了淫荡的程度，其中一些歌词提到了晚礼服上的体液，暗示着粗野的性爱。但是其中的性爱——在豪华轿车上，在厨房里，在所有的地方，但是显然不在卧室里——是婚后的性爱，是家庭价值观念里的性爱，专辑中明确说明，这样的性爱孕育了一个活泼的女婴，这样的结果恐怕连比尔·奥赖利也会感到欣慰。
Beyoncé's songs are packed tight with such contradictions. Think of "Single Ladies," an anthem of feisty feminist solidarity that endorses the most retrograde diamonds-are-a-girl's-best-friend brand of transactional romance: "If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it." Or consider "***Flawless," on the new album, which throws together a dizzying mix of sounds and signifiers. There's a clamorous trap beat and pitch-shifted vocals; there are shout-outs to Houston ("H-town vicious") and to Jay Z's record label, Roc Nation ("My Roc, flawless"). There are coarse mean-girl threats ("Bow down, bitches!") and a sampled snippet from a TEDx talk by the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie titled "We Should All Be Feminists," which wags a finger at mean-girl threats: "We raise girls to see each other as competitors." The video intersperses an excerpt from 10-year-old Beyoncé's appearance on the TV talent show "Star Search" with the current-day Beyoncé, clad in Kurt Cobain flannel, executing a spectacular dance routine in a dank basement surrounded by skinheads. It's all tied together by a refrain — "I woke up like this!" — which, among other things, does double duty as a boast about effortless beauty and a mantra of enlightenment. What does Beyoncé mean? What doesn't she mean.
碧昂斯的歌充满了这样的矛盾。比如《单身女士》，它是一首对活跃的女性主义团结的赞歌，但是它赞同最退化的“钻石是女孩最好的朋友”式的交易型恋爱：“如果你喜欢它，那你就应该在上面放个戒指。”又如新专辑中的《***无瑕》(***Flawless)，它把声音和信号令人眩晕地结合在一起。其中有喧闹的打击乐和音高不断变化的唱腔；有对休斯顿的呼喊（“堕落的H市”），也有对Jay Z唱片公司Roc Nation的赞美（“我的Roc，完美无瑕”）。既有刻薄女孩的粗俗威胁（“鞠躬，贱人！”），也有尼日利亚小说家奇玛曼达·恩格兹·阿迪切(Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)在TEDx大会上的演讲片段，演讲题目叫《我们都应该做女权主义者》(We Should All Be Feminists)，它不赞同刻薄女孩的威胁：“我们养女孩就是要互相竞争。”音乐录影带把碧昂斯10岁时在电视才艺表演节目《明日之星》(Star Search)中的片段与如今的碧昂斯的镜头穿插起来，现在的她穿着科特·柯本(Kurt Cobain)式法兰绒衣服，在一个阴湿的地下室跳舞，周围全是光头青年。一句副歌把这些联系到了一起——“我醒来就变成这样了！”——这句话和其他很多内容一样，有双重意义，既是对自己天生丽质的吹嘘，又像是开悟的咒语。碧昂斯意味着什么？她意味着一切。