Sterophonics：
Art direction: Graham Rounthwaite

The Music：
front cover image: THE MUSIC (2002) original cibachrome print with paint by ROB & NICK CARTER

如果把這兩張一起拿出來聽，一個不小心我還真有可能裝錯殼子哩。

難得國語部門專作爛偶像的福茂唱片終於又開始恢復西洋音樂專輯的代理發行業務了，特別是 V2 這個搖滾廠牌的產品，大部分都有一定的品質保證呢。雖然還是有很多作法讓樂迷臉上頓時三條直線背後還有落葉伴隨冷風與烏鴉叫聲靜靜飄落。Stereophonics 是「英倫版的五月天」？有必要嗎？福茂把 Bloc Party 翻成「街趴樂團」，剛好跟台灣環球音樂把 The Killers 的單曲《Somebody Told Me》重新搞上一個「有人來爆料」這種莫名其妙的鬼翻譯遙相呼應。有時我真覺得唱片公司喜歡用這種白爛翻譯，實在是對那些國外優秀音樂人的侮辱。

written & performanced by Stereophonics

立體音響樂團　　Stereophonics
演唱　　　　　　爵士西洋

雖說這是他們的第五張作品，但他們為了新專輯「性／暴力／語言分級制？」（LANGUAGE. SEX. VIOLENCE. OTHER?）就如同發行首張專輯一樣地興奮。

介紹

距上張冠軍專輯睽違兩年的時間，他們忙著美國的巡迴表演，還與大衛鮑伊同台，同時創作及錄製新專輯。加入了新鼓手 JAVIER WEYLER，取代了原先的 STUART CABLE，帶來全新的陣容，全新的氣勢。主唱 KELLY 說到「現在感覺一切對極了，我們完成了張令我們感到興奮的作品。」

說得一點也沒錯。新專輯「性／暴力／語言分級制？」是張鉅作，十一首作品支支精彩。團員們都達成共識要完成一張完全不同於上張的作品，要立刻吸引聽眾，同時更要帶點深度。新專輯只先給少數挑選的唱片公司，家人及朋友試聽，聽過的人都表以驚訝，團員們坦承一開始聽眾的反應讓他們感到困惑但，隨之的確是欣喜。他們還是一點都沒變，只是這次是你所不知的另一面。

人們會如此驚訝，大概是因為第一次團員們都非常地確定目標。這將是一張非常令人振奮的一張專輯，非常簡潔的一張，團員們這次百分之百確定的歌單，專輯名稱將只有一個字，就像他們 1997 年的首張專輯「WORD GETS ARROUND」那般充滿活力，更加上了他們成為了全英最成功的搖滾樂團的一貫製作，這將是一張非常現代的專輯。

稍早之前，主唱 KELLY 在聽他們的上一張專輯「YOU GOTTA GO THERE TO COME BACK」，他豁然開朗起來，「我再想到底在搞啥！我們非常非常地用心在這張專輯裡，但是它真的聽來太厚重了。」「我們這次在新作絕不這樣了」RICHARD 說。「的確，新專輯聽來多了些…活力。」

在很多方面，他們的新轉變來自於新鼓手 JAVIER WEYLER。他們在錄製上張專輯的時候認識了這位爽朗的阿根廷人。 JAVIER 在錄音室裡工作，和團員們很快地成為了朋友，當 KELLY 開始為新專輯錄製歌曲時，JAVIER 在鼓手的位置上，他們便開始一起合奏。KELLY 發覺他跟鼓手一起在錄音室裡合作，而不是跟著電腦的程式在做音樂，一個新的啟示於是成形。他們的合作激出了火花，歌曲於是很快嚴然成形。

「性／暴力／語言分級制？」專輯的名稱出自在 DVD 產品背面的分級語詞，KELLY 於是想，是否凡事都能以這四項來分類，還是有其他的可能性？

毫無疑問的，新專輯將是張你不會直按跳曲鍵的 CD。構想是來自早期的黑膠唱片時光，播放一面，聽完全部，然後你去把唱針拿會最前面，在去聽一遍。現在，時常很多樂團，只因為他們有辦法做出滿滿 80 分鐘的 CD，但卻不去在乎音樂的品質？

首支單曲「DAKOTA」就是首最能代表他們的作品，快意與憂傷的旋律緊緊地抓住聽眾的心。「DOORMAN」是首活力充沛且充滿幽默的作品，而「SUPERMAN」是首典型的現代搖滾曲，也是 KELLY 為新專輯寫的第一首曲子，他於是想到「啊！這下可好了，我得開始寫其他 10 首歌才行了！」

新專輯的美術設計出自著名的插畫家 GRAHAM ROUNTHWAITE，這也是他們首次合作。這也回歸了新專輯的原始概念，「所有投入新專輯的製作的人都是新的，都是第一次和他們合作，這是一次全新的開始，我們從這裡出發是再令我們興奮不過了！」

樂團簡介： 1996 年成軍於英國，之後以單曲 LOCAL BOY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH（1998），HURRY UP AND WAIT（1999），MR WRITER（2001），MAYBE TOMORROW（2003）在歌壇豎立起優秀的創作口碑。巡迴全球各國演出，專輯總銷售超過了七百萬張。

 

Stereophonics 立體音響樂團- Maybe Tomorrow電影衝擊效應

Stereophonics - Maybe Tomorrow (MV) 
from motion picture soundtrack L.A. Crash (2005)

http://203.69.144.201/grm.cdn.hinet.net/xuite/2/6/b/3/10352729/blog_26303/dv/6750900/6750900.wmv

stereophonics-maybe tomorrow

I've been down and
I'm wondering why
These little black clouds
Keep walking around
With me
With me

It wastes time
And I'd rather be high
Think I'll walk me outside
And buy a rainbow smile
But be free
They're all free

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

I look around at a beautiful life
Been the upperside of down
Been the inside of out
But we breathe
We breathe

I wanna breeze and an open mind
I wanna swim in the ocean
Wanna take my time for me
All me

 So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

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For a few years now, the Decemberists' stagey, hyperliterate folk-rock has played well at indie labels Hush and Kill Rock Stars. The quintet has occupied a small community-theater space with gleefulness and confidence, but now it's accepted a scholarship to Capitol Records, which means a larger stage and a bigger audience. Can the band still project, or will its voices be lost in a cavernous auditorium, rejoined only by crickets and barely stifled coughs of boredom? Will nine-minute mariner epics play in Peoria?

Given the band's graduation from minor to major leagues, The Crane Wife may prove to be the most crucial record the Decemberists will release in their lifetime. Fortunately, their fourth album further magnifies and refines their strengths. Winsomely balancing frivolity and gravity, the Decemberists assemble an oddball menagerie of the usual rogues and rascals, soldiers and criminals, lovers and baby butchers-- but they've got a lot more tricks up their sleeves than previous albums had hinted. The Crane Wife employs an impressive variety of styles and sounds to tell Meloy's imaginative stories: There's the band's usual folk-rock, honed to an incisively sharp point, but they also deploy a smuggler's blues ("The Perfect Crime"), a creepy lullaby ("Shankill Butchers"), a Led Zep stomp ("When the War Came"), and, perhaps most divisively, a multipart prog track ("The Island") that stretches well past the 10-minute mark. No epic chantey this time, though.

Meloy's inventive songwriting is the binding force, emphasizing character but remaining ever in thrall to stories, savoring the way they always play out to the same conclusions. Along with the homosexual undertones that have informed Decemberists songs from every album, he jettisons most of the archetypes that inspired Picaresque and cuts his characters loose in their own tales. They still do what they're fated to do-- the thieves thieve and run amok, the lovers love and die tragically, the soldiers soldier on and pine for peaceful homes-- but they seem to do it more out of free will than authorial design.

Meloy focuses mainly on matters of war ("But O did you see all the dead of Manassas/ All the bellies and the bones and the bile?") and love ("No, I lingered here with the blankets barren/ And my own belly big with child"). On the duet "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)", Meloy plays the part of an errant, possibly dead Civil War soldier while singer-songwriter Laura Veirs cameos as his "sweetheart left behind." It's Cold Mountain writ poignantly small, its sweet, wordless chorus perfectly life-size. Lumbering menacingly, the martial march of "When the War Came" smells of gunpowder and singed hair, although it sounds like it's anchored in Neverland despite trying to comment on real-world events.

Meloy's taletelling will always define the Decemberists, but The Crane Wife puts as much weight on the music as on the lyrics, and here the band gels into a tight, intuitive unit. The musicians give each song a particular spark and character, not just reinforcing the lyrics but actively telling a story. They create a breezy eddy of guitar strums and piano chords to enhance a windborne melody and an undercurrent of peril on "Summersong", and the tragedy of "O Valencia"-- any good song about star-crossed lovers must end in death-- is countered by the pep of the music, especially Chris Funk's ascending and descending guitar, which seems to take a particular glee in the inevitable denouement. The band isn't just able-bodied, but ambitious to boot. It makes the brainy prog of that monster second track, a distillation of the musical reach of their 2003 EP The Tain, sound like a natural extension of their base sound. They troll confidently from the rumbling overture and heated exposition of "Come and See" to the final rueful notes of "You'll Not Feel the Drowning". The song is chockablock with progisms-- organ runs, dampered cymbals, laser synths-- but manages to shake off the genre quote marks as the band jam with convincing menace.

Their range allows them to be precociously diverse, but everything fits naturally. The Crane Wife sounds like their most shapely album to date, resembling a spirited story arc in its set-up, rising action, climax, and resolution. In this structure the three title segments, despite essentially bookending the tracklist, form the album's thematic centerpiece, the music and story meshing gracefully and tenderly to retell a Japanese fable. "The Crane Wife 3" opens the album with a ruminative flourish as John Moen's drums push the sensuous thrust of the music and Meloy's delivery of the lines "each feather it fell from skin" colors the resignation of "I will hang my head hang my head low." It opens the album en medias res, setting up the subsequent story-songs as the narrator's rueful reminiscences.

"The Crane Wife 1 and 2" comprise a medley towards the album's end, starting slow and soft but gradually reaching crescendo in an unfurling finale, with Meloy breaking the word "heart" into multiple syllables over an unraveling drum beat. Restrained yet resonant, the song's (and album's) climax is a remarkable moment. As it segues into the rousing coda of "Sons & Daughters", the Decemberists sound like a band that knows exactly where they're going and won't be satisfied until you come along for the trip.

-Stephen M. Deusner, October 03, 2006