新闻周刊:裸体淑女合唱团Stunt专辑成功背后的故事(1)

From the Culture Section

文章来源于《文化》版块

Barenaked Ladies on 20 Years of 'Stunt¹' and Why They Stopped Recording² Songs Naked

裸体淑女合唱团《Stunt》专辑发行20年，缘何不再裸体录制歌曲

BY ZACH SCHONFELD

作者：扎克·斯科菲尔德

It feels like a different universe. In fact it was the summer of 1998: Bill Clinton was testifying in front of a grand jury about an affair with a White House intern³, "The Boy Is Mine" by Brandy and Monica was the biggest song in the country and Armageddon was earning millions at the box office.

感觉就像不同的宇宙。事实上，那是1998年的夏季：比尔·克林顿就与白宫实习生的风流韵事在大陪审团前作证。白兰蒂和莫妮卡合唱的《他是我的》是全美最热歌曲，电影《世界末日》票房高达几百万。

Up north, a bunch of quirky Canadians who called themselves Barenaked Ladies were plotting their world takeover. Led by co-lead singers Ed Robertson and Steven Page, the band's 1992 debut⁴ Gordon, with signature singalong " If I Had $1000000," had transformed them into local heroes. Then 1998's Stunt dialed up the hooks and condensed the group's spirited, humor-heavy live shows into 50 minutes of not-too-jokey pop. Perhaps more significantly, the album led off with the freakishly catchy⁵ "One Week," a rap-rock beast of a single that has become so unavoidably entrenched⁶ in the pop consciousness that simply singing the first two words of the song ("It's been!) can cause strangers to burst into song.

而在北方，一群古怪的加拿大人正策划接管世界，他们自称为“裸体淑女合唱团”。艾德·罗伯逊和史蒂芬·佩奇是乐团主轴，1992年推出首张专辑《戈登》，主打歌是《如果我有一百万美元》，他们在当地红极一时。然后1998年的专辑《惊人之举》将乐队活泼、幽默的现场表演浓缩成50分钟的不太滑稽的流行音乐，让观众们眼前一亮。也许更重要的是，这张专辑主打歌是特别朗朗上口的《一周》。这首单曲中的说唱摇滚已经不可避免地在流行意识中根深蒂固，以至于仅仅是哼唱前两个词(“It’s been!”)，陌生人就能突然接下去。

By the fall of '98, "One Week" was a No. 1 hit and Stunt was moving millions of units stateside. (That was the age when people happily paid $17.99 for CDs.) "It was weird," Robertson says now. "We're a band that has always seen ourselves as underdogs." In retrospect⁷, "One Week" feels like an artifact of an era when anything could be a hit, however offbeat⁸ or goofy, and the record business was rolling in pre-Napster cash.

到1998年秋，《一周》成为了美国最受欢迎的歌曲，《惊人之举》在美国本土的销量达到了数百万部。(在那个时代，人们愿意花17.99美元购买CD唱片。)“这很奇怪，” 罗伯逊现在说道。“我们是一个总是把自己看作弱者的乐队。” 回想起来，《一周》感觉像是那个时代的产物，在那个时代，任何东西都可以成为热门，不管它是多么古怪或愚蠢。然而不管怎样古怪或愚蠢，唱片业务在签约纳普斯特唱片公司之前就滚滚而来。

Though Steven Page left the band in 2009 to go solo, Barenaked Ladies is still touring widely and releasing a 20th anniversary edition of Stunt on CD/DVD and vinyl this fall. In March, the band managed to get inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. (For that occasion, Page rejoined his former bandmates: Robertson, drummer Tyler Stewart, keyboard Kevin Hearn and bassist Jim Creeggan.) BNL's latest album, Fake Nudes⁹, came out in 2017.

尽管史蒂芬·佩奇2009年就离开乐队单独发展，但是乐队仍在今年秋天进行了巡回演出，并发行了CD/DVD和《惊人之举》黑胶唱片20周年纪念版。今年3月，该乐队成功入选加拿大音乐名人堂。（那次，佩奇重新加入了他以前的乐队：罗伯逊，鼓手泰勒·斯图尔特，键盘手凯文·赫恩和贝斯手吉姆·克雷根）裸体淑女合唱团的最新专辑《假裸体》于2017年发行。

In a recent interview, Ed Roberston told us the story behind Stunt's monstrous¹⁰ success and explained why the band ended its tradition of getting naked in the studio.

在最近的一次采访中，艾德·罗伯逊向我们讲述了《惊人之举》巨大成功背后的故事，并解释了为什么这支乐队结束了在演播室里裸体的传统。

1 stunt   

n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长

参考例句：

• Lack of the right food may stunt growth.缺乏适当的食物会阻碍发育。
• Right up there is where the big stunt is taking place.那边将会有惊人的表演。

2 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

3 intern   

v.拘禁，软禁；n.实习生

参考例句：

• I worked as an intern in that firm last summer.去年夏天我在那家商行实习。
• The intern bandaged the cut as the nurse looked on.这位实习生在护士的照看下给病人包扎伤口。

4 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

5 catchy   

adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的

参考例句：

• We need a new slogan.The old one's not catchy enough.我们需要新的口号，旧的不够吸引人。
• The chorus is very catchy to say the least.副歌部分很容易上口。

6 entrenched   

adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯)

参考例句：

• Television seems to be firmly entrenched as the number one medium for national advertising.电视看来要在全国广告媒介中牢固地占据头等位置。
• If the enemy dares to attack us in these entrenched positions,we will make short work of them.如果敌人胆敢进攻我们固守的阵地，我们就消灭他们。

7 retrospect   

n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯

参考例句：

• One's school life seems happier in retrospect than in reality.学校生活回忆起来显得比实际上要快乐。
• In retrospect,it's easy to see why we were wrong.回顾过去就很容易明白我们的错处了。

8 offbeat   

adj.不平常的，离奇的

参考例句：

• She adores old,offbeat antiques.她非常喜欢那些稀奇古怪的老古董。
• His style is offbeat but highly creative.他的风格很不寻常但非常有创造力。

9 nudes   

（绘画、照片或雕塑）裸体( nude的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He also drew Chinese opera figures, nudes and still lives. 他还画戏曲人物画、裸女、瓶花静物等。

10 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！