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Pop stars are all about albums
流行音乐歌星都是发专辑的
Contradictory though it may seem in the streaming era.
虽然这在流媒体时代可能看起来有些矛盾。
To Billie Eilish, things like cassettes and CDs probably seem charmingly retro. Born in 2001, the musician was six years old when Spotify launched; today she is the fourth-most popular artist on the platform.
对比莉·艾利什来说，磁带和CD之类的东西可能有一种迷人的复古魅力。这位音乐人出生于2001年，Spotify推出时她才六岁，如今她已是该平台上受欢迎度第四的音乐人。
Ms Eilish has only ever known 21st-century listening habits. And yet she has emerged as an unlikely champion of a time-worn format: the album.
艾利什只了解21世纪的听歌习惯。然而，她却出人意料地成为了一种过时形式——专辑——的倡导者。
She declared that her new record, "Hit Me Hard and Soft", released in May, was a "cohesive" piece of work, "ideally listened to in its entirety from beginning to end". No singles were released in advance as amuse-bouches for famished fans.
她宣称，她于5月发行的新唱片《温柔重击》是一部“连贯”的作品，“最好是从头到尾完整地听完”。没有单曲作为开胃小菜提前发布给饥饿的粉丝。
She is not the only hitmaker emphasising the album rather than its component parts. Dua Lipa's debut album in 2017 was preceded by six singles; she scaled back for her latest record. And Taylor Swift has issued four successive sets of new material with no advance singles.
她不是唯一一个强调专辑而非组成专辑的歌曲的热门音乐创作者。杜阿·利帕在2017年发行首张专辑之前推出了六首单曲，发布最新的唱片之前她缩减了单曲数量。而泰勒·斯威夫特已经连续发行了四张新专辑，之前都没有推出单曲。
For decades after the birth of recorded music in the 1920s, the single was the only thing that mattered, mostly because it was the only thing there was: early gramophone records could hold just a few minutes of music on each side.
自20世纪20年代录制音乐诞生后的几十年里，单曲是唯一重要的东西，主要是因为当时只有单曲：早期的留声机唱片每面只能容纳几分钟的音乐。
As technology improved, playing times increased, and groups such as the Beatles came to see LPs ("long play") as statements of ambition. From the mid-1960s onwards, albums became something to be appreciated as complete works of art.
随着技术的改进，播放时间延长，披头士等乐队开始将LP（“长时间播放唱片”）视为宣称雄心的一种方式。从20世纪60年代中期开始，专辑成为了一种可以被作为完整艺术作品而欣赏的东西。
In 1988 Prince released his "Lovesexy" album on CD as one continuous track, with the explicit goal of making it impossible to cherry-pick songs.
1988年，王子以CD形式发行了他的专辑《爱与性感》，CD中只有一个连续的音轨，目的非常清晰，就是让人们无法挑着听歌。
No doubt Ms Eilish and co want to prove their serious musical chops. Pop music is still often regarded as ephemeral, because it relies on catchy tracks that can dominate airwaves and charts.
毫无疑问，艾利什等人想要证明她们的音乐是严肃高级的。因为流行音乐依赖洗脑的旋律才能在广播和榜单上占据首位，所以这种音乐仍然常常被视为是不能长久流传的。
Singles account for around 65% of a hit rock album's total "consumption" (including streaming as well as physical purchases). For a pop album that figure rises to 85%.
单曲约占热门摇滚专辑总“消费量”（包括流媒体和实体专辑购买）的65%。对于流行音乐专辑来说，这一数字上升到了85%。
This crop of pop stars has discovered that a deluge can be better than a drip-feed. Stars can encourage fans to buy their record on vinyl and stream the album, too. As a result, "The artist and their label partner earn twice," says Chris Cooke of CMU, a music-industry website.
这批流行歌星已经发现，集中推出一批歌曲可能比涓涓细流地推出单曲更好。歌星可以鼓励粉丝购买她们的黑胶唱片，同时也可以在流媒体上发行专辑。结果就是，音乐行业网站CMU的克里斯·库克表示：“歌手及其合作的唱片公司能赚两次钱。”
And, by releasing the songs all at once, artists enjoy the kind of chart dominance that sporadic singles do not provide. Ms Eilish currently has three tracks in the Billboard top 20. After the release of "The Tortured Poets Department", Ms Swift claimed the top 14 spots.
而且，通过一次性发布所有歌曲，音乐人们享受了那种零散的单曲所不能提供的排行榜统治地位。艾利什目前有三首歌曲进入了公告牌榜单前20名。在《苦难诗社》专辑发行后，斯威夫特占据了前14名。
Singles are still useful for pop's aspiring princesses, but not the queens.
对于流行乐坛渴望成功的公主们来说，单曲仍然有用，但对于流行天后们来说就不是了。
