The Economist-20241130期「Britain」Pop music: To be loved
No one like you
02 全文梳理
【Para1】引入话题👉两周前，阿黛尔在结束两年拉斯维加斯驻场后，宣布无限期暂停活动。
【Para2】“后继无人”👉阿黛尔的地位使得她暂别歌坛可能会给英国音乐行业带来重大影响
【Para3-6】阿黛尔的“音乐神话”:
-para3 横空出世👉阿黛尔在盗版横行的年代签约独立厂牌，但她证明了巨星不受影响。
-para4 屡创佳绩👉阿黛尔每张专辑都登上过英国销售榜冠军，在世界范围内唱片销售份额也相当高。
-para5 专注音乐👉与其他音乐明星相比，阿黛尔只专注于音乐，而且倾向于传统的专辑销售模式。
-para6 恰逢其时👉阿黛尔登上歌手之路时，专辑仍占主导地位，这使得她拥有早期一批忠实粉丝。
【Para7】未来担忧👉行业高管开始担心流媒体时代音乐人的号召力，而英国在脱欧后音乐市场变得萎靡。
【Para8】作者点评👉即便英国音乐产业底蕴十足，但要再培养一个阿黛尔可能不太容易。
03 原文阅读 684words
Pop music: To be loved
Adele could be the last of her kind
Pop music: To be loved
Adele could be the last of her kind
[5] Other musical stars have built careers as clothiers, actors, perfumiers and prolific tourers. Adele has shown little interest in the first three, and, although good at it, has struggled with performing live. “Behind the eyes it’s pure fear,” she once said. Instead, she specialises in the old-fashioned business of making and selling albums, particularly the kind you can touch (Ed Sheeran, another British singing success, is better at racking up streams). Adele appeals so widely that her fans include old people who thought piracy dishonest and find streaming confusing.
[6] “She’s strange by today’s standards, but not by yesterday’s standards,” says Mark Mulligan, a music analyst at MIDiA Research. Had she been born a decade later, success would have been harder. Mr Mulligan points out that Adele, and other stars like Taylor Swift, amassed devoted followings in the days when many people still acquired albums and listened to them repeatedly. In the streaming era there is always a new track to sample, and people are herded into musical niches by algorithms. Newer stars like Charli XCX burn faintly and flickeringly by comparison.
[7] Music executives everywhere worry about the future supply of stadium-fillers. In Britain the BPI, which represents record labels, frets that the country’s artists now account for less than 10% of worldwide tracks streamed. That is mostly because of the global rise of streaming. But Sophie Jones, the BPI’s chief strategy officer, points out that some governments, notably South Korea’s, have lavished attention and money on pop music. Britain has made matters worse by leaving the EU; that has flung up barriers to touring acts.
[8] The country has important advantages. Its people are culturally diverse and English-speaking. It has strong intellectual property rights. It also has the BRIT School, a state school in south London founded in 1991, which specialises in the performing arts. A remarkable number of successful musicians, including Adele, Raye and the late Amy Winehouse, went there. A second school, funded by the music industry, is expected to open in a few years’ time in Bradford. Britain will produce more pop stars—but, probably, not another Adele. ■
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