“小甜甜”布蘭妮：愛是穿腸毒藥——Toxic

小甜甜布蘭妮《Toxic》的風(fēng)靡程度自不必說。然而，當(dāng)解構(gòu)主義遇上流行音樂，二者會碰撞出怎樣的火花？在“作者已死”、“作品已死”的解構(gòu)中，一首歌能被多少人詮釋，又能擁有多少條嶄新的生命？

In 2003 Britney Spears was suffering a bit of a career slump.She had yet to reach her excruciating, head-shaving nadir of 2007, but she needed a hit.The English songwriter Cathy Dennis had penned a new tune, “Toxic”, that she had offered to Kylie Minogue （who had conquered the globe with Dennis's “Can't Get You Out Of My Head” in 2001）.Kylie, inexplicably, turned the song down, so it was offered to Britney; this jerkily insistent Bond-meets-Bollywood electro-dance-pop tune became a worldwide hit and an instant dance-floor filler.

如果說布蘭妮·斯皮爾斯（Britney Spears）在2003年承受了些許職業(yè)的低潮，那么在經(jīng)歷了剃光頭事件的2007年， 她算是跌到了黑暗的最低谷，亟需來點(diǎn)強(qiáng)心劑。英國詞曲作者凱茜·丹尼斯（Cathy Dennis）為凱莉·米洛 （Kylie Minogue）寫了首新歌叫《Toxic》，凱莉曾在2001年憑借同出自丹尼斯之手的《Can't Get You Out Of My Head》紅遍全球。出人意料的是，凱莉拒絕了這首歌，于是歌便到了布蘭妮手中?！禩oxic》這支跌宕不絕的電子舞曲洋溢著Bond樂隊與寶萊塢兩種風(fēng)格碰撞的火花，迅速風(fēng)靡世界，成了炙手可熱的舞池背景樂。

“Toxic”, in fact, has four songwriting credits, the other three being Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg （of the production team Bloodshy & Avant） and Henrik Jonback：all Swedes, another example of Sweden's success in the pop industry.A snippet of the song, the propulsive strings, comes from a Bollywood song in Hindi, “Tere Mere Beech Mein”.

《Toxic》實(shí)際上有四位詞曲作者，其他三位分別是Christian Karlsson、Pontus Winnberg（制作團(tuán)隊Bloodshy & Avant的成員）與Henrik Jonback。他們都是瑞典人——又是一個瑞典在流行音樂產(chǎn)業(yè)成功的例證。不斷推進(jìn)的一小段弦樂源自一首名為《Tere Mere Beech Mein》的用北印度語演唱的寶萊塢歌曲。

So, an American singer had a hit with a song written by an Englishwoman and three Swedes, with help from a tune used in an Indian film; the song was recorded in Stockholm and Hollywood, then mixed in Stockholm.This is the way the pop world now works.

一個英國的女音樂人與三個瑞典詞曲家所作的歌與來自印度電影里的一段曲調(diào)成就了一位美國歌手的走紅。歌曲先在斯德哥爾摩與好萊塢完成錄音，然后在斯德哥爾摩混音。這就是當(dāng)今流行樂壇的工作方式。

But once a song has been constructed, what's to stop someone from deconstructing it? Here's where the story of “Toxic” becomes interesting.In 2011 the American singer-songwriter Jayme Dee stripped “Toxic” down to its essentials in a radical rereading; she can be seen on YouTube with an acoustic guitar and a sultry pout, moaning the song in a slowed-down 3/4 arrangement.

然而當(dāng)歌曲一經(jīng)問世，有什么能阻止別人翻唱呢？這便是《Toxic》故事有意思的地方。在2011年，美國歌手兼詞曲作者Jayme Dee拆解了這首歌而只保留了其中的關(guān)鍵元素，并加以全新演繹。你可以在YouTube上看她彈著原聲吉他，微撅著動人雙唇，悠悠低唱著已減速至四三拍的此曲。

This was not the first time a Britney song had been given the acoustic treatment：for his album 1,000 Years of Popular Music, the folk-rock singer Richard Thompson did something similar to “Oops! …I Did it Again” （another Swedish-written Britney hit, by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub）.What Dee and Thompson achieved was almost archaeological, digging through the accreted layers of production to discover that, underneath it all, there is an actual song.

布蘭妮的歌不是第一次被改編。民謠搖滾歌手理查德·湯普森（Richard Thompson）在他的唱片《千年流行音樂》中就對《Oops! …I Did it Again》（又是一首瑞典人打造的布蘭妮熱門歌曲，作者是Max Martin與Rami Yacoub）做了全新處理。Dee與Thompson達(dá)成的是近乎考古學(xué)意義上的成就，一層層深入，發(fā)掘出隱匿于表象背后的純粹的歌曲。

A radically deconstructed “Toxic” has also been heard in the distant future.Last summer, London's Almeida Theatre staged Mr Burns：a Post-Electric Play, a production, first performed in Washington DC, which imagines a post-apocalyptic future world in which roving troupes of players perform episodes of The Simpsons and sing pop songs from the old days.

被脫胎換骨改編的《Toxic》也已響起于遠(yuǎn)隔的未來。上一個夏天，倫敦艾爾美達(dá)劇院（Almeida Theatre）上演了戲劇《Mr Burns》，這部后電子時代風(fēng)格的劇最初在華盛頓哥倫比亞特區(qū)表演，該劇想象出一個巡回劇團(tuán)在世界末日后的未來表演《辛普森一家》的片段，并演唱這些曾經(jīng)的流行老歌。

In such a purely oral/aural world, the play's author Anne Washburn suggests, without access to electricity, TV or the internet, survivors would depend on （and also trade） snippets of script or music for their physical, emotional and spiritual sustenance.The show's score cleverly imagines how popular music might survive in such a future：in fragments.One of the songs that weaves its way through Mr Burns （and it's an apt one, given the poisoned state of this blasted world） is “Toxic”, its Bollywood strings transmogrified into an eerie “Ooh-ee-ooh” vocal refrain.

劇作者Anne Washburn建議，在這樣一個純粹口述并依賴聽覺的世界中，沒有一切電力供應(yīng)、電視或是網(wǎng)絡(luò)，劇本片段或音樂片段將成為幸存者們生理、情感與精神的養(yǎng)料（抑或交易對象）。演出巧妙設(shè)想了在這樣一個未來之中流行樂將會如何存在，答案是——以碎片的形態(tài)?！禩oxic》是其中一首穿插在《Mr Burns》的歌。那來自寶萊塢的弦樂幻化為怪誕的“歐——咦——?dú)W”疊音，響徹不絕（這首歌在這個深受荼毒的荒涼世界里的演繹是如此熨帖）。

詞匯總結(jié)

slump[sl?mp]

v.下降，衰落；倒下；大幅度下降，暴跌

In 2003 Britney Spears was suffering a bit of a career slump.

布蘭妮·斯皮爾斯（Britney Spears）在2003年承受了些許職業(yè)的低潮。

acoustic[?'ku?st?k]

adj.聲學(xué)的；音響的；聽覺的

n.原聲樂器；不用電傳音的樂器

This was not the first time a Britney song had been given the acoustic treatment.

布蘭妮的歌不是第一次被改編。

snippet['sn?p?t]

n.小片；片斷

Survivors would depend on （and also trade） snippets of script or music for their physical, emotional and spiritual sustenance.

劇本片段或音樂片段將成為幸存者們生理、情感與精神的養(yǎng)料（抑或交易對象）。

blasted['blɑ?st?d]

adj.枯萎的；被害的；被咒的

transmogrify[tr?nz'm?gr?fa?]

v.使變成奇形怪狀；使變形

One of the songs that weaves its way through Mr Burns（and it's an apt one, given the poisoned state of this blasted world） is “Toxic”, its Bollywood strings transmogrified into an eerie “Ooh-ee-ooh” vocal refrain.

《Toxic》是其中一首穿插在《Mr Burns》的歌。那來自寶萊塢的弦樂幻化為怪誕的“歐——咦——?dú)W”疊音，響徹不絕（這首歌在這個深受荼毒的荒涼世界里的演繹是如此熨帖）。