TE||Avicii
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导读
上帝想要听电音，所以带走了“A神”
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音乐| 精读 | 翻译 | 词组
Avicii
电音界A神
英文部分选自经济学人Obituary版块
When it’s all over
当一切都归于沉寂....
Avicii (Tim Bergling) died on April 20th
艾维奇（原名提姆·柏格林）于4月20日离世
The Swedish DJ and musician was 28
这位来自瑞典的DJ、音乐制作人年仅28岁
ONCE he started the music—flinging up his right arm, while his left hand worked the decks to bring it flooding, then crashing in—the crowd in the hall could not resist. Caught up with him, they would shudder, pulse, sway, dance, then go “completely apeshit”, pumping their arms, buckling their half-naked bodies. He usually viewed it from above, a seething mass of sweaty shoulders, whiplashing hair and imploring hands, cut into sections by laser lights or masked by drifting dry ice. Relentlessly the oontz-oontz-oontz-oontz of a bass beat, Avicii’s signature, took them over. Wildly happy, his mostly millennial worshippers left the world behind.
只要艾维奇一开始播放音乐，一边抬起右臂，一边用左手在打碟机上舞动，音乐如洪水般席卷整个音乐厅，狂欢者们就立刻无法自拔。随着艾维奇的节奏，他们会剧烈摇晃身体跳舞，然后彻底变得疯狂，狂舞手臂，扭动半裸的身体。他总是能从台上看到台下这样的情景：人们跳得火热，汗湿了肩膀，手舞足蹈，头发飞扬。在激光和蒸发的干冰气体中，他们的形象显得模糊不清。在音响发出的“动次打次”的低音节奏中，艾维奇给粉丝签名，使他们陷入极度迷狂与狂喜。他的粉丝大多是千禧一代的年轻人，此刻他们已经完全将世界抱在脑后，心里只有艾维奇。
“Taking them on a journey” was what he felt he did—a skill that led him to perform for gatherings of thousands all over the globe, headlining the festivals of electronic dance music in Europe, America and Australia, becoming a staple in the glitzy EDM nightclubs of Las Vegas, playing the Hollywood Bowl and electrifying the close of the World Cup. The energy of his music could carry ravers anywhere. Like the nerdy clerk in the video for “Levels” (2011), his breakthrough hit, his fans could dance crazily round the office in a perfect storm of paper. Or like the plump, fed-up girl in the video for “I Could be the One” (2013), they could be wafted to a paradise island full of feasting, fun sex and rides on white horses along the beach. Forget desk-drudgery, crashing banks, Middle Eastern wars. They could be there.
他觉得自己所做的无非就是“用音乐带他们去旅行”。就是这种音乐态度使他在全球成千上万的聚会表演上大获成功。艾维奇在欧洲、美国和澳大利亚举办的电音节上大放异彩，一度是拉斯维加斯耀眼的EDM夜店的标志性人物。他也曾在好莱坞舞台和世界杯闭幕式上表演，令人兴奋。艾维奇的音乐能量可以让世界上任何地方的人们狂欢起来。就像2011年大热的突破性作品《Levels》里的书呆子们一样，伴随着他的音乐，他们将文件抛入空中，在漫天飞纸的办公室里狂舞；或者像2013年作品《I could be the one》里肥胖厌世的女孩们一样，飘到天堂般的小岛上，尽情享受盛宴、性爱，自由自在地沿着海滩骑着白马。他的音乐可以让人们忘掉单调乏味的工作，崩溃的银行，中东的战争，人们都可以到达幸福的彼岸。
And they all looked to him to perform this miracle. The DJ was once a figure on the side, half-hidden behind the decks, just a means to the beats. But he, though in jeans and T-shirt and backwards baseball cap like some technician, was a superstar of the club scene. He could earn $250,000 a night, and in 2014 Forbes estimated his earnings at $28m. The perks were good, too. Girls threw their bras at him, adoring his snub nose and platinum hair. The partying was continuous. Every time he flashed a “C” sign to his bodyman, Felix, during a show, another glass of champagne would be put into his hand.
所有人都期待着他演绎出这个奇迹。曾几何时，DJ只是一个站在角落的角色，半藏在舞台之后，仅仅需要打节拍。而他虽然看起来像名技术员，身穿牛仔裤、T恤，反带棒球帽，却是俱乐部舞台上的超级明星。他一晚上能挣25万美元，2014年《福布斯》杂志估计他的收入达到2800万美元。当然超级巨星的甜头他也尝到不少。女孩们把内衣扔向他，爱慕着他的翘鼻和白金色头发。派对高潮不断，从不停歇。表演时，他只需向他的助理菲利克斯打出“C”的手势，又一杯香槟就会送到他手中。
Lowest hell
最深的地狱
It was not bad for a quiet, shy boy from Stockholm who would have been happy just making remixes in his bedroom, posting them online and doing the odd small gig. But at 18 he fell in with Ash Pournouri, a club promoter, who said he could turn him into “the biggest artist”. Together they made about 100 tracks, mostly riffs on tunes by other writers, underpinned with that mesmerising four-chord beat of deep house, the sound he loved, and layered with synthesiser effects. He also wrote his own songs, such as “Wake Me Up”, borrowing from whatever interested him, even folk, country and bluegrass. Cool inspirations came almost organically. To him, all music was there for the mixing.
对于他来说，这样的成就的确不赖。这个来自斯德哥尔摩的男孩安静、害羞，本来在自己卧室里里制作点混音，传到网上，再做点奇怪的小表演就很开心了。但18岁时，他偶然遇见一位俱乐部赞助商阿什·普尔努里（Ash Pournouri）。普尔努里称要将他打造为“最伟大的艺术家”。他们一起制作了大约100段曲子，大部分来自其它作曲家写的重复乐段，加上他喜欢的四和弦节拍的迷幻灵歌，再叠上合成器效果。他也会自己写歌，比如“唤醒我”。他的灵感来自于自己所感兴趣的一切音乐类型，无论是民谣、乡村还是蓝草。灵感总是自然而然地产生。对于他来说，所有音乐都可以混合。
Yet learning to DJ confidently in public took 18 months, and his stage-name was the Buddhist term for lowest hell, as if he recoiled from the start. He didn’t enjoy people looking at him, with the acne marks on his face. Before shows he was almost unbearably nervous, smoking one cigarillo after another. Online stuff hurt. Critics accused him of doing nothing on stage but fiddling with the volume on prerecorded playlists, otherwise just jiggling and smiling. How was that difficult?
然而，DJ要学习18个月才能在公众面前自信地打碟。他的舞台名取自佛教用语“地狱的最底层”，冥冥之中，似有不祥之兆。他脸上有痘印，不喜欢别人看他。在演出之前，他紧张异常，一根接一根地抽着雪茄。网上的评论也很伤人。批评者指责他在舞台上做样子，只是在预先录制的播放列表上摆弄摆弄音量键，要么就是晃晃身子，大笑两声。 这谁不会？
He admitted to Jessica Pressler of GQ magazine that yes, volume control was a lot of it. And yes, the playlist was planned, not adjusted moment by moment in the old style. He then scrambled to defend his art, explaining how carefully he had to work out beforehand how to build up energy in a set, how to fade expertly out and in, how to keep the crowd so into it that they wouldn’t, couldn’t leave. It was good; stars like Madonna and Coldplay lined up to work with him. Nonetheless, doubts pricked. He felt only reasonably happy, confessing that when that stupid bright light was on him, it felt so awkward.
他向GQ杂志的Jessica Pressler承认，现场表演很大一部分的确只是在控制音量，播放列表也确实是提前准备好的，而不是像以前一样时刻调整。接着他誓死捍卫自己的艺术，解释他事先如何地用心才能在一辑音乐中制造出效果，如何专业地加入或者淡出配乐，观众沉溺其中无法自拔，不愿离去。舞台效果确实好; 像麦当娜和酷玩乐队这样的明星都排着队想与他合作。尽管如此，怀疑论者伤了他的心。他坦白说自己心情时好时坏，当那愚蠢的舞台灯光打到他身上时，感觉自己很尴尬。
Lucid moments became rarer as he jetted from city to city and club to club. His diet became Bloody Marys at the airport, wine on the plane, Dom Pérignon during the shows. In 2016, after severe pancreatitis and the removal of his gall bladder and appendix, he gave up performing live. But the hints were already there in the lyrics for “Wake Me Up”, which he had played at Earl’s Court in 2014 in a whirl of eight layers of lasers and a diamond-shaped screen that reflected light as fractals:I tried carrying the weight of the world ,But I only have two hands.
马不停蹄地从一个城市飞到另一个城市，从一家夜总会奔向另一家夜总会，机场里的血玛丽酒，飞机上的葡萄酒，演出中的唐培里侬香槟，他的饮食里除了酒精别无其他，因而清醒的时候越来越少。2016年，经历了严重的胰腺炎，摘除了胆囊和阑尾之后，他告别了现场表演。然而就在2014年，伦敦Earl’s Court 的舞台上，八束镭射激光在不停旋转着，钻石形的屏幕上反射着斑驳的光影，在那一片光怪陆离中，他演奏着“叫醒我”（“Wake Me Up”），歌词中已经预示了这一切：我想顶起全世界的重量，却力不从心
The hints were also there in the video for “Feeling Good” in 2015, his version of a song recorded by Nina Simone, in which Volvo used him to drive a new car to places where he could wander at sunset, gloomy in a woolly hat, among sand dunes and wintry fields. This, said the voice-over, was “the chance to be just—Tim”. Most of the time, he turned away from the camera.
2015年发行的音乐MV“我心飞扬”（“Feeling Good”）中也有这种预示。在这支MV中，他重新演绎了妮娜·西蒙（Nina Simone）的原曲。MV中的他开着一款Volvo新车， 迎着落日的余晖，在沙丘和寒冷的旷野中穿行，绒线帽下藏着一张闷闷不乐的脸。画外音响起“给他一个机会，做自己”。但是，大多数情况下，他都躲避着摄像机的镜头。
He had too little left for the life of a real person, he wrote in an online letter to his fans. He wanted to go back to creating music in his studio, where it all made sense. Meanwhile, as 2018 began, he posted pictures on Instagram of himself playing with his dog, exploring flea markets and contemplating empty, leafy lanes. Every photo shouted happy escape, but never so loudly—never so persuasively—as his beats had shouted it, not all that long ago.
他在给粉丝的电子邮件中写道：“在他的生命中，做一个正常人的时间太少。”他曾想回到工作室重新创作音乐，那里才是能做有意义事情的地方。同时，2018年刚开始之际，他在Instagram上发布的照片中，和狗狗玩耍，逛跳蚤市场，在空空荡荡、树叶纷飞的小巷里沉思。每一张照片都发出了他心中快乐的解脱，但是却从未这么声嘶力竭，也从未这么让人信服，就像他在不久之前所创作的音乐一样。
翻译组：
Li Xia, 女， HR, 经济学人发烧友
Yi, 女，财务民工，经济学人爱好者
Neil, 男，外贸民工，经济学人铁粉
Cece，女，消防工作者，CATTI三笔
Lee，男，医学英译 Timberland爱好者
校核组：
Yao,男，英专本科生，北大苗子
Dave，大学老师，二级口译笔译，科幻文学译者
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3观点 |评论|思考
本次观点由Samantha独家奉献
Samantha，女，滑冰狂人，邓伦未婚妻
土老帽的我从来没去过任何音乐节，也极少听电音摇滚，刚刚找来Avicii的视频看，旋律好听，手势独创，隔着屏幕都能感受到那份心跳，曾经看过他现场的人必然更加永生难忘。每个人排解情绪的出口都不同。读书时有幸演过几场话剧，当灯光全暗，只剩下舞台中央的灯照得人冒汗，站在台上或哭或笑恨不得使出两百分的力气把角色演好。对个人而言，最大的挑战不是累，而是结束后没法很快调整回平静的状态——仿佛一直处于极度兴奋中。话剧尚且如此，在动辄吸引成千上万人的音乐节里作DJ调动所有人的情绪，那种亢奋带来的压力之大是难以想象的。
普通人的28岁也许事业刚刚起步，奔波奋斗柴米油盐，偶尔想着脱单，时刻盼望脱贫。Avicii的28岁已经盛名加身，聚光灯下享受所有人目光追随，聚光灯外酗酒和疾病是他每天要面对却无能为力的事。如果有一个人，能让哪怕只有一小部分人得到释怀，在柴米油盐里把他的音乐当作出口，那他所做的一切就值得被铭记。从这一点来说，Avicii的贡献无可估量。他牺牲了很多普通人幸福的方式才换来这掺杂着巨大苦涩的幸福结晶，上帝其实也想了解他到底有多大魅力，于是叫走了他，以后天堂的唱诗班里便多了一种叫Avicii的电音。
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