Neil McCormick reviews US pop star Madonna's concert at Hyde Park, part of her MDNA Tour.
尼尔.麦考米克回顾了美国流行天后麦当娜在海德公园的演唱会,这次演唱会是她MDNA世界巡演的一部分。
No one pulled the plug on Madonna at Hyde Park. Well, Who would dare? Judging by the content of this show, she might garrotte, kick, shoot or whip any antagonist, then make a sanctimonious speech about world peace over their broken and bleeding body.
没有人在麦当娜海德公园演唱会中提前离场,谁敢?从本场演唱会的内容判断,麦当娜可能会绞杀、脚踢、射杀或者鞭打任何与她作对的人,然后假装虔诚地站在他们破碎流血的身体上发表一番关于世界和平的演说。
It was a typically sensationalist and schizophrenic Madonna production, mixing sex, ultra violence, religion, kitsch and politics to bizarre but entertaining effect.
这是一场典型的哗众取宠且精神分裂的麦当娜作品,混杂有性、极端暴力、宗教、低俗趣味和政治色彩,营造出怪诞却具有娱乐性的效果。
It has been an interesting week of Hyde Park concerts, with big guns all impressing in very different ways. Springsteen did it with charisma, emotional content and dynamic rock power. Paul Simon did it with subtlety, detail and complex musical interplay. Madonna did it with lights, dancers, giant video screens, hydraulics, costume changes, flying drummers, tightrope walking, cheerleaders, a basque folk trio ... And music too.
海德公园这一周的演唱会十分有趣,诸多大腕用各自不同的方式表示自我。斯普林斯廷演唱会一呼百应,情感充沛,用充满活力的摇滚震撼全场。保罗?西蒙则是用灯光、舞蹈演员、巨型屏幕、液压装置、服饰变换、飞行鼓手、钢丝行走、啦啦队员、巴斯克民乐三人组等等来充实演唱会,当然,除了这些,也有音乐。
I have criticised Madonna in the past for an over reliance on backing tracks and backing singers to fill in the vocal gaps while she's doing her yoga moves. But amidst the autotuned super choreographed dance productions, the real highlight of this show was a stripped back version of Like A Virgin, performed to piano and violin in the style of Brechtian cabaret. Fragile and intense, it openly embraced the ever present subtext of her age, displaying a sexual vulnerability that was far more resonant and effective than her brief stint as a superannuated cheerleader during Gimme All Ure Luvvin. I honestly did not suspect she had that performance in her. It suggests that she might actually have somewhere creative to go as her pop appeal wanes.
我过去一直批评麦当娜过于依赖背景音乐和背景歌手来填补她进行瑜伽动作时声音的空白。但是在这次非常棒的精心设计的舞蹈演出当中,演唱会真正的高潮是精简版本的"Like A Virgin",由钢琴和小提琴伴奏,展现了布莱希特歌舞表演的风格。表演轻柔而热烈,公开了麦当娜的年龄,展现了人的性欲弱点,比她曾经短期作为Gimme All Ure Luvvin老迈的啦啦队长时展示得更为淋漓尽致。坦白来讲,我并不怀疑她有能力进行这样的表演。这表明当麦当娜号召力逐渐衰退时,她或许真的还有可以挖掘的地方。
Her latest album, MDNA, has been a bit of a flop, in large part I suspect because she's trying too hard to keep up with the kids. Live she plays to different strengths, emphasising her showomanship with enough drama and spectacle to cover up the gap in class between her classic hits and rather more feeble recent stabs at electropop. The opening section is actually quite unpleasantly aggressive, particularly the blood spatter and multiple murders set piece for Gang Bang, although its hard to deny that aggression suits her. Madonna stomps around the set in black leather like an aging dominatrix, which is hard to equate with the love in at the end, with monks, Bhuddists and gospel singers joining in a happy clappy version of Like A Prayer.
麦当娜最新专辑《MDNA》遭遇惨败,在很大程度上我认为是因为她过于努力地想要跟随年轻人的步伐。她发挥自己各种各样的优势,通过相当多的戏剧和宏大的舞台强调她女性表现力,掩盖她曾经的经典与现如今在电子流行乐坛里糟糕的表现之间的差距。开场部分非常暴力,尤其是鲜血飞溅,多重谋杀为接下来的街头暴力进行铺垫,尽管说不可否认暴力很适合她,但是让人感觉很不愉快。麦当娜身穿黑色皮革,像一个上了年纪的母夜叉,在舞台上奋力跺脚,但是结尾以“爱”结束,和尚、佛教徒、福音歌手纷纷加入欢乐版“Like A Prayer”的表演当中,开头的暴力血腥与结尾的温馨风格完全不同。
But Madonna makes no attempt at consistency. Perhaps that's part of her genius, everything and anything goes. During Express Yourself, she even threw in a few bars of Lady GaGa's 'Born This Way', then danced around singing "She's not me, she's not me." For sheer wacky mass pop entertainment, Madonna proved herself more than equal to the challenge of all her young pretenders.
但是麦当娜并不试图保持一致,或许这就是她天赋的一部分,什么都敢于尝试。在演唱“Express Yourself”过程中,她甚至向观众抛洒Lady Gaga“Born This Way”的棒子,然后边跳边唱,“她不是我,她不是我”。对于怪诞十足的大众流行娱乐来说,麦当娜向世人证明了自己仍然能够给后起之秀们造成足够的威胁。