美国国家公共电台 NPR Beyoncé, Bandcamp And Bob Dylan: The Week In Music News

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

We're going to turn from financial to music news. And joining us now to do that is Jacob Ganz, senior editor with NPR Music. Jacob, thanks for coming down.

JACOB GANZ, BYLINE¹: You're welcome, Audie.

CORNISH: All right, so we're going to get to some of the big news of the week, especially since music kind of intersected with politics this week. But first I want to start with what turned out to be the number one headline. Do you want to say it?

GANZ: Do you want the honors?

CORNISH: All right, I'll do it.

GANZ: Yeah.

CORNISH: Beyonce, twins...

GANZ: Twins.

CORNISH: ...Instagram.

GANZ: Wow.

CORNISH: Yeah. Beyonce Knowles, biggest star in pop music right now, posted a picture on her Instagram where she's posing bare belly², wearing a veil, cascade³ of flowers and with a caption⁴ that implied that she was going to be giving birth to twins. Now, why did this break the internet?

GANZ: Everything that she does is so perfectly⁵ calibrated⁶ to communicate directly to her audience that she basically controls that communication from the beginning all the way to the end. She gave people exactly what they wanted. She did this with her self-titled album that came out in 2013. She did this with her album "Lemonade" that came out last year. She's able to give people very, very tiny pieces of information that just bust⁷ everything else out of the conversation for a short period of time. And for...

CORNISH: And we have some data about how she was able to pierce the zeitgeist, right? I mean, this is pre-Super Bowl during Trump⁸'s second week. And what was she able to do?

GANZ: She was able to get more likes on Instagram than any other photo that's ever been posted on Instagram within, like, six hours of being posted. Over 9 million likes so far on this photo, which is basically just a birth announcement. I mean, everybody gets them in their emails, right?

CORNISH: (Laughter) All right, well, I want to get to our cover story this week because the president's executive order keeping citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. actually had an impact on the music community, on some artists from overseas. And then you saw the music kind of business kind of take steps in the direction of protest towards this administration. People have talked about that a lot with tech. What happened here in the U.S. with some of the big music companies?

GANZ: Well, one of the things that happened is Bandcamp, which is a music sales and streaming website, that's sort of more artist friendly. They are donating all of their proceeds from sales today to the ACLU, and over 200 musicians and labels have joined them in doing that. And this is a thing that you've actually seen since the administration started, band after band after band, protest album after protest after protest album have come out, some of them actually specifically against the executive order on immigration itself.

The British electronic musician Kieran Hebden, who records as Four Tet, started putting together this playlist on Spotify just immediately after the order made news that features only musicians from those seven countries. It's 337 songs long at this point and growing.

CORNISH: And meanwhile, there are artists from some of these essentially⁹ blacklisted countries who have put out music, right? Can you give us an example?

GANZ: Yeah. There's an Iraqi oud player - it's a traditional instrument - named Rahim AlHaj who's actually an American citizen. He lived in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's reign¹⁰ and was tortured, moved to the United States, became an American citizen, lives in New Mexico, performance regularly We've had him here at NPR to play a Tiny Desk Concert. He is putting out an album soon called "Letters From Iraq," but he's the very first musician on that Four Tet Spotify playlist.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAHIM ALHAJ SONG, "TAQSIM MAQAM AJAM")

CORNISH: Who are the artists coming out for Trump in this atmosphere?

GANZ: Well, there have been a few. I mean, during the inauguration¹¹ Lee Greenwood played "God Bless The USA." Toby Keith played, Three Doors Down played. There haven't been as many who have had specific responses to his administration or to the policies of his administration. I think that's something that you would expect, but I'm sure that we will hear from musicians who support him. But the response in the other direction has really been overwhelming. And it is, you know, financially and musically notable at this point.

CORNISH: All right, last story of the week, new music from someone we think of as being a protest singer.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU")

BOB DYLAN: (Singing) I could have told you she'd hurt you. She'd love you a while, then desert you.

CORNISH: Although that's not what he's doing here, right?

GANZ: Yeah. Well, Bob Dylan has always said he's not a protest singer, right? But he's the guy when you think of protest songs who in the 20th century embodies¹² that role for so many people. And there are still people actually who are using his songs as protest songs against this administration.

Dylan is, for the last few years, going through this phase where he's putting out love songs written and recorded in the 1940s and '50s, mainly known as songs by Frank Sinatra. It's a very strange turn for him. It's a very baffling thing, I think, for a lot of his fans. If there's one musician who you'd really like to see turn Donald Trump - the president of the United States Donald Trump - into a character I think it would be Bob Dylan, but that's just not what we're getting it.

CORNISH: That's NPR Music senior editor Jacob Ganz. Jacob, thanks so much.

GANZ: You're welcome, Audie.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU")

DYLAN: (Singing) I hear her now.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

3 cascade   

n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下

参考例句：

• She watched the magnificent waterfall cascade down the mountainside.她看着壮观的瀑布从山坡上倾泻而下。
• Her hair fell over her shoulders in a cascade of curls.她的卷发像瀑布一样垂在肩上。

4 caption   

n.说明，字幕，标题；v.加上标题，加上说明

参考例句：

• I didn't understand the drawing until I read the caption.直到我看到这幅画的说明才弄懂其意思。
• There is a caption under the picture.图片下边附有说明。

5 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

6 calibrated   

v.校准( calibrate的过去式和过去分词 )；使标准化；使合标准；测量（枪的）口径

参考例句：

• Power pesticide dusters can be calibrated and used to apply pertilizer. 动力杀虫剂可以调整用来施肥。 来自辞典例句
• The flexible diaphragm is connected to a plat cantilever-calibrated spring. 柔韧的膜片一扁平的悬臂校正弹簧相连。 来自辞典例句

7 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

8 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

9 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

10 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

11 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

12 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》