超级碗中场表演 反映美国歌坛阴盛阳衰

Given the agonizing over air pressure that has racked the N.F.L. in recent weeks, it was appropriate that the halftime entertainment at Super Bowl XLIX was Katy Perry, a queen of our deflated pop times.

鉴于最近几周来国家橄榄球联盟承受着极度痛苦的压力，因此超级碗XLIX的中场娱乐由凯蒂·佩里(Katy Perry)出演便也顺理成章，因为她是我们这个娱乐疲软时代的女皇。

Ms. Perry is a Technicolor cipher, a singer who takes on the shapes and tones she is given with aplomb and cheer but maybe not wit. That hasn’t hampered her success — her “Teenage Dream” of 2010 (Capitol) was the first album by a female artist to land five songs atop the Billboard Hot 100, and her 2013 album “Prism” had two thunderous hits. Ms. Perry is a pop perennial, one of the few left.

佩里是个是色彩鲜艳的小角色，她的形象和与生俱来的声音源于自信与欢快，但或许不是源自才智。但这并没有影响到她的成功——2010年，她的《青少年梦想》(Teenage Dream, Capitol)中有五首歌都打入“公告牌100首金曲排行榜”，这对于女性艺人来说还是第一次。2013年，她的专辑《棱镜》(Prism) 中有两首大受欢迎的金曲。佩里堪称是流行乐界仅存无几的常青树。

And the Super Bowl halftime show is a massive stage, one that requires the sort of pop stars that aren’t being minted regularly anymore, ones with wide cross-demographic appeal. In this environment, Ms. Perry will do.

超级碗的中场演出是个巨大的舞台，需要的是那种现在已经不是那么常见、能对广泛的各种人群都有吸引力的歌手。佩里很适合这种环境。

During her 12 or so minutes on the University of Phoenix Stadium field on Sunday, she held her own, navigating a handful of her smashes and three wardrobe changes in a performance that resisted bad mood, spanning all of Ms. Perry’s modes: the triumphant “Roar,” the spooky “Dark Horse” (sadly without the rapper Juicy J), the chipper “California Gurls,” the beacon of pure uplift “Firework.”

星期日，在凤凰城大学体育馆，她的演出大约在12分钟左右，其间她保持了自己的风格，唱了几首她的代表作，中间换了三次衣服，为这场拒绝坏心情的盛会带来了饱满的情绪：欢欣鼓舞的《咆哮》(Roar)、略有怪异的《黑马》（Dark Horse，很遗憾说唱歌手Juicy J没能加入），活泼的《加利福尼亚女孩》(California Gurls)，以及纯粹欢快的代表作《焰火》(Firework)。

Ms. Perry generally doesn’t move much onstage, so she was presented in a series of setups that masked that fact — atop a pseudo-tessellated mechanical lion, among a sea of dancing chess pieces and attached to a shooting star hoisted high above the field.

佩里在舞台上很少跳舞，所以她设计了不少舞台手段来掩饰这个事实——站在仿棋盘格纹的机械狮子上、站在一大堆跳舞的棋子中间、身体贴在高悬于球场之上的一颗流星上面。

And she was gifted with guest artists who provided her with strategic cover. Take “I Kissed a Girl,” a dim song about experimenting with bisexuality that was Ms. Perry’s first Billboard Hot 100 chart topper, in 2008. She sang it in duet with Lenny Kravitz, who opened the song, presumably to help the subject matter go down more easily for unprepared, unforgiving viewers.

她巧妙地找来了客座艺人帮她打掩护。《我吻了一个女孩》(I Kissed a Girl)是一首含糊的歌，尝试了双性恋题材，也是佩里在2008年首次登上公告牌100首金曲排行榜头名的歌曲。这一次，她找来兰尼·克拉维茨(Lenny Kravitz)与她对唱，克拉维茨先唱，这可能是为了让那些对于这首歌的主题没有做好准备、无法谅解的听众更易于接受。

After about a minute of shouty singing and guitar angst, Mr. Kravitz was gone, leaving barely a mark, having been on stage largely to soften that song and to reassure those who still require the sight of a guitar, even one not plugged into anything.

经过了一分钟喊叫般的歌唱与焦灼的吉他演奏，克拉维茨离开了舞台，几乎没留下一丝痕迹，他的到来主要是为了缓和这首歌的气氛，也为了安抚那些仍然希望看到吉他的观众，尽管吉他上什么线也没有插。

Ms. Perry benefited far more from her second guest, the rapper Missy Elliott, long out of the spotlight but still easily the most modern-sounding artist on the stage. She ran a speed course through three hits — “Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It,” “Lose Control” — and easily doubled the energy onstage.

第二位嘉宾是说唱歌手梅西·埃利奥特(Missy Elliott)，她给佩里带来的帮助要大得多。埃利奥特已经很久没有出现在聚光灯下，但还是轻易成为这个舞台上最为现代的声音。她以兴奋的速度带来三首金曲《让你兴奋》(Get Ur Freak On)、《干得好》(Work It)和《失控》(Lose Control)，轻易便令舞台上的活力加倍。

At one point, Ms. Perry tried to dance next to Ms. Elliott, to get some refracted shine, but she was lost amid the jumpsuit-clad backup dancers marching in military lock step. Ms. Elliott herself was casually tough, and even slipped into a grin on a couple of occasions.

佩里一度试图与埃利奥特一同起舞，好从她身上沾点光，但当穿着紧身衣的伴舞们踢着正步走过舞台时，佩里的身影就被淹没了。埃利奥特本人则随意而强悍，有几次甚至露出了笑容。

All in all, this was a halftime show that was notably unafraid of the feminine; in that regard, it was on par with the Beyoncé spectacular of two years ago (although vocally and performance-wise, Ms. Perry is no Beyoncé).

总的来说，这是一场完全不避讳女性气质的中场演出；在这个意义上，和碧昂斯(Beyoncé)两年前精彩的超级碗演出可谓旗鼓相当，尽管在声音和演出方面，佩里与碧昂斯完全不同。

With that Beyoncé show, this performance helped bring a definitive end to the several-year drought filled with dad rock that followed the 2004 Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake wardrobe debacle: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Who. In that stretch, only Prince approached something like youth, or raunch, or joy.

自从2004年珍妮特·杰克逊(Janet Jackson)与贾斯汀·汀布莱克(Justin Timberlake)的行头风波以来，若干年里，超级碗中场演出便充斥着父亲式的摇滚：保罗·麦卡特尼(Paul McCartney)、“滚石”(the Rolling Stones)、汤姆·佩蒂(Tom Petty)与“伤心人”(the Heartbreakers)、布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀(Bruce Springsteen)与“E大街乐队”(E Street Band)，还有“谁人”(the Who)，碧昂斯的演出为此画上了句号。

Since then, the halftime show has skewed younger and more colorful. But it is now running up against the limits of the marketplace. Last year, the slightly underfed Bruno Mars was the main attraction, a reflection of the utter dearth of viable contemporary male pop stars. Assuming that Mr. Timberlake would not be asked back, and that someone like Justin Bieber would be too much of a wild card, there may be no male singers in pop ready to step on this stage.

自从那次以后，中场演出就变得更加年轻化，更加丰富多彩。但如今，它开始碰撞市场的边界。去年，勉强之选布鲁诺·马斯(Bruno Mars)成了最吸引人的歌星，这反映出当代流行男歌手岌岌可危的状况。假如不邀请汀布莱克回归，贾斯汀·比伯(Justin Bieber)变数又太大，那么就实在没有流行男歌手可以登上这个舞台了。

So let the female reign continue. Sign up Taylor Swift — nemesis of Ms. Perry, and the most competitive person in pop — for 2016, and don’t even worry about whichever teams are warring it out on the field before and after her. She’ll be the victor.

所以让女歌手继续独领风骚吧，2016年，不妨签下佩里的劲敌、流行乐界最有竞争力的人——泰勒·斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)，不管届时球场上是哪两只球队在拼杀，最后的赢家肯定是她。