歌手：Carly Rae Jepsen
流派：POP流行
语种：英语
发行时间：2023-07-28
唱片公司：Silent Records IGA
类型：录音室专辑
专辑介绍：
卡莉·蕾·杰普森如同一部大制作浪漫喜剧中的大女主，一个非常讨喜的普通女子，一个随性自嘲的梦想家，她的沉稳不敌其突然爆发的情感焰火。让你蹲的歌词超越陈词滥调的是她对角色的坚定信念：她能够无所畏惧地跨越情感的尴尬边缘，相信自己的音乐。就像霉霉一样，蹲妹唤起观众狂热情感的天赋，只有在罐头式的讥讽和令人讨厌的幽默取代了汹涌澎湃的激情或清醒的启示时，才会被削弱。不过，你霉的每一句话都在加深人们对她的个人崇拜，而你蹲（旅游天后）的形象则更为宽泛：她的声音、外表或怪癖虽不那么有辨识度，但却挥舞着宝剑，向你的内心致敬。
她的最新专辑《The Loveliest Time》是去年《The Loneliest Time》的延续，也是主题上的松散反转。这张唱片是蹲妹超高产量录音室工作中精选出的B-side系列专辑中的第三张，也是“Weird Carly”的集中体现，在流行音乐传统的边缘大放异彩。《The Loneliest Time》沉浸在私人的落寞和疫情的萎靡中，而《The Loveliest Time》则趾高气扬、外向，沉醉于崭新的爱情，对欲望直言不讳。这同时也是她音乐风格最多样化的一部作品，从go-go到French touch，再到准IDM，她都有涉足。《The Loveliest Time》证明了你蹲只要发自内心地歌唱，她的音乐就可以容忍大量的矫揉造作。
在Rostam、Patrik Berger、John Hill和Kyle Shearer等一批可靠的回归伙伴的帮助下，你蹲的音乐既保留了一定的原有风格，又加入了不少狂放不羁的声音。《Kamikaze》和主打单曲《Shy Boy》都是有着熟悉“蹲式风格”的作品，是80年代武器级流行乐的代表作，在充满力量的鼓机和螺旋状的莫洛德尔合成器的衬托下，迸发出勃勃生机。但《The Loveliest Time》也有着令人着迷的迂回。开场曲 《Anything to Be With You 》在清脆的go-go鼓点和电吉他的配合下，达到了类似于 Amerie 的 《1 Thing》的那般轻盈效果。在循环的人声采样和逐渐庞大的法式合成器的衬托下，《Psychedelic Switch》这首突出的单曲光彩夺目，让人沉醉其中。到目前为止，最奇特的歌曲是《After Last Night》，其为一首由 Rostam 制作的巴洛克式 Aughts Pop，与《Genie in a Bottle》一脉相承。
《The Loneliest Time》中的孤独感实际更多是一种暗示，而非中心思想，虽然《The Loveliest Time》在很大程度上践行了其开诚布公的情感承诺，但也并非完全轻松愉快。在《Shy Boy》一曲中，你蹲和一个羞涩的帅哥一起发号施令；在《Psychedelic Switch》一曲中，蹲妹的狂喜让人激动不已；而在《Aeroplanes》和《Put It to Rest》等中速曲目中，杰普森的愉悦与焦虑交织在一起。虽然这两首歌都非常入耳（后者的鼓点令人拍案叫绝），但它们的收录表明，这张专辑事实上是一张精选集，而非概念专辑。《Kollage》中昏暗的 Tame Impala 风格吉他和《Stadium Love》中汽车广告体量的合成器让人感觉格格不入。不过，整体来看，《The Loveliest Time》与其姊妹专辑相得益彰，以沉静、内敛的力量换来了欢快、奔放的喜悦。
Like the heroine of a big-budget romantic comedy, Carly Rae Jepsen presents as an eminently likable everywoman, a casually self-deprecating dreamer whose composure is no match for a sudden explosion of emotional fireworks. What elevates Jepsen’s script beyond cliché is the degree of conviction she brings to the part: her fearless ability to scale the embarrassing edge of feeling and trust-fall into her music. Like Taylor Swift, Jepsen’s gift for summoning rapturous emotion is undercut only when canned sass and cringe humor take precedence over roiling passion or clear-eyed revelation. But where Swift’s every word deepens an already cultish personal mythology, Jepsen’s persona is more broadly sketched: less identifiable with a specific sound, look, or set of quirks than a sword-wielding mandate to honor the immediacy of your heart.
Her newest album, The Loveliest Time, is a companion to and loose thematic inversion of last year’s The Loneliest Time. The third in a series of B-side albums culled from Jepsen’s ultra-productive studio sessions, it is also a concentrated dose of Weird Carly, operating at the flamboyant edges of pop convention. Where The Loneliest Time was steeped in personal loss and pandemic malaise, The Loveliest is strutting and extroverted, drunk off new love and bracingly direct about desire. It is also one of the most musically diverse in her catalog, cycling through experiments that range from go-go to French touch to quasi-IDM. So long as she sings from the heart, The Loveliest Time suggests that Jepsen’s music can tolerate an enormous amount of artifice.
With a reliable set of returning collaborators including Rostam, Patrik Berger, John Hill, and Kyle Shearer, Jepsen dips into sounds that both stay the course and swerve wildly from anything else in her discography. “Kamikaze” and lead single “Shy Boy” are familiar offerings from Jepsen, slices of weapons-grade ’80s pop that roar to life off the back of muscular drum machines and spiraling Moroder synths. But The Loveliest Time also has fascinating detours. Opener “Anything to Be With You” rides a crisp go-go drumline shot through with electric guitar reminiscent of Amerie’s “1 Thing” and achieves a similar weightless groove. Buoyed by looping vocal samples and progressively massive French touch synths, standout track “Psychedelic Switch” is a glorious surrender to sensation. The strangest song by far is “After Last Night,” a glitchy piece of Rostam-produced baroque aughts pop in the vein of “Genie in a Bottle” that Jepsen transforms into a characteristic moment of starry-eyed romantic realization.
Actual loneliness on The Loneliest Time was more of a suggestion than a central conceit, and while The Loveliest Time mostly lives up to its promise of openhearted emotion, it isn’t entirely breezy. While it’s thrilling to hear the singer call the shots with a timid hottie on “Shy Boy” or lose her conscious faculties to sheer ecstasy on “Psychedelic Switch,” Jepsen’s giddy uplift is bookended by pockets of angst on mid-tempo tracks like “Aeroplanes” and “Put It to Rest.” And while they’re perfectly serviceable songs—with some incredible drumming on the latter—their inclusion affirms that this is indeed a collection of outtakes rather than a concept album. The dusky Tame Impala-style guitar on “Kollage” and car-commercial-sized synth of “Stadium Love” likewise feel out of place. Taken as a whole, though, The Loveliest Time is a solid counterpart to its sister album, trading quiet, introspective power for brassy, headlong joy.
专辑曲目：
01. Anything To Be With You
02. Kamikaze
03. After Last Night
04. Aeroplanes
05. Shy Boy
06. Kollage
07. Shadow
08. Psychedelic Switch
09. So Right
10. Come Over
11. Put It To Rest
12. Stadium Love
13. Weekend Love
