Stop eating Lady Gaga’s Oreos: The Great Switcheroo

别再吃 Lady Gaga 的奥利奥了：一场伟大的“偷梁换柱”

Here’s a story from 30 years ago that would make no sense today. 这是一个 30 年前的故事，放在今天简直不可理喻。

It’s 1992. Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten is selling well. But then MTV puts the music video for their song “Jeremy” in heavy rotation, and the band rockets into superstardom—shows suddenly sold out, fans smashing record store windows, the whole shebang. 时间回到 1992 年。珍珠果酱乐队（Pearl Jam）的首张专辑《Ten》销量不错。但随后 MTV 开始高频播放他们的歌曲《Jeremy》的 MV，乐队瞬间跻身超级巨星行列——演出门票瞬间售罄，粉丝们砸碎唱片店的橱窗，场面极其疯狂。

That’s familiar enough, but what happens next is not. Pearl Jam responds to this hullabaloo by refusing to make music videos for the next five years. They decline photoshoots and interviews. When their producer tells them that their song “Better Man” is a surefire hit, they cut it from their second album. Nevertheless, that album sells nearly a million copies in its first week, setting a record. Then it sells six million more, staying at #1 on the Billboard chart for over a month. 这听起来还算熟悉，但接下来的事情就不一样了。面对这种喧嚣，珍珠果酱乐队的反应是：在接下来的五年里拒绝拍摄任何 MV。他们拒绝拍摄写真和接受采访。当制作人告诉他们歌曲《Better Man》绝对会火时，他们却将其从第二张专辑中删除了。尽管如此，那张专辑首周销量仍接近百万，创下了纪录。随后又卖出了六百万张，在公告牌排行榜（Billboard）榜首停留了超过一个月。

They say that the past is a foreign country, and reading a Pearl Jam profile from the early 90s, it certainly feels that way. The writer takes for granted that fame is inherently bad. And not just because fans might, say, break into your backstage dressing room and steal your notebooks—which they did—but also because commercial success and artistic integrity are so obviously at odds with one another. Kurt Cobain had mocked the band for catering to the mainstream, and the criticism clearly stung. It was understood that being popular was somehow, paradoxically, uncool, and that Pearl Jam owed everyone assurances that they hadn’t gotten too big for their britches. 人们常说“过去是一个陌生的国度”，读着 90 年代初关于珍珠果酱乐队的报道，确实有这种感觉。作者理所当然地认为名气本身就是坏事。这不仅是因为粉丝可能会闯入后台更衣室偷走你的笔记本（他们确实这么干过），还因为商业成功与艺术完整性在当时显然是水火不容的。科特·柯本（Kurt Cobain）曾嘲讽该乐队迎合主流，这种批评显然刺痛了他们。当时人们普遍认为，受欢迎在某种程度上是矛盾且“不酷”的，珍珠果酱乐队必须向所有人保证，他们并没有因为走红而变得傲慢自大。

I am just barely old enough to remember this era, when “selling out” was a bad thing you did with your career, rather than a good thing you do with your stadium tour. Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century, the book where I first read this story about Pearl Jam, quotes the 90s chronicler Chuck Klosterman: “the concept of ‘selling out’ […] is the single most nineties aspect of the nineties”. I gained consciousness at about the time that Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls gained worldwide fame, and I understood that it was hip to hate them. This didn’t stop them from selling millions of records, of course. But there was a sizable sector of society that refused to join in, a clutch of (sometimes snobby) purists who were ready to turn on anyone who got too big or too rich. As the music writer Chris Dalla Riva points out, around this time, a rock band could lose permanently lose their street cred for appearing in a Miller commercial. 我刚好还记得那个时代，“出卖灵魂”（selling out）是职业生涯中的污点，而不是现在体育场巡演中那种值得称道的商业行为。《Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century》是我第一次读到珍珠果酱乐队故事的书，书中引用了 90 年代记录者查克·克洛斯特曼（Chuck Klosterman）的话：“‘出卖灵魂’的概念……是 90 年代最典型的特征。”我开始有意识时，正值后街男孩（Backstreet Boys）、超级男孩（NSYNC）和辣妹组合（Spice Girls）风靡全球，我当时明白“讨厌他们”是一种潮流。当然，这并没有阻止他们卖出数百万张唱片。但社会中存在相当大一部分人拒绝随波逐流，一群（有时显得势利的）纯粹主义者随时准备攻击任何变得太红或太有钱的人。正如音乐作家克里斯·达拉·里瓦（Chris Dalla Riva）所指出的，在那个时期，一支摇滚乐队如果出现在米勒啤酒（Miller）的广告中，可能会永久失去他们的街头信誉。

That feeling was part of a larger anti-consumerist vibe percolating through culture at the time. This was the era of Super Size Me and the anti-World Trade Organization protests that came to be known as the Battle of Seattle. My parents furnished me with copies of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Naomi Klein’s anti-capitalist manifesto No Logo. My English teacher made the whole class read anti-consumerist YA novels like Feed and The Gospel According to Larry. I got so caught up in the fervor that I almost showed up to a school dance with a handmade sign that said “I AM PROTESTING CONSUMERISM”. I chickened out at the last second, but clearly there was some potent zeitgeist going on if a 13-year-old was about to stake their reputation on, I guess, not buying stuff? 这种情绪是当时渗透在文化中的反消费主义氛围的一部分。那是《超码的我》（Super Size Me）和被称为“西雅图之战”的反世贸组织抗议活动的时代。我的父母给我提供了埃里克·施洛瑟（Eric Schlosser）的《快餐国家》（Fast Food Nation）和娜奥米·克莱因（Naomi Klein）的反资本主义宣言《No Logo》。我的英语老师让全班阅读像《Feed》和《The Gospel According to Larry》这样的反消费主义青少年小说。我当时太狂热了，差点带着一块写着“我正在抗议消费主义”的手工牌子去参加学校舞会。我在最后一刻退缩了，但很明显，如果一个 13 岁的孩子准备以“不买东西”来赌上自己的名声，那说明当时确实存在一种强烈的时代精神。

Fast forward to today, and that zeitgeist is long gone. Meghan Thee Stallion is a Popeyes franchisee, Drake would like you to try online gambling, and Maroon 5 is covering Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as a tribute to Hyundai. Shortly after she charted her first hit, the rapper Ice Spice was partnering with Ben Affleck and Dunkin’ Donuts on an Ice Spice Munchkins Drink. We’ve got punk icon Iggy Pop selling insurance and Bob Dylan appearing in a Victoria’s Secret commercial. Lollapalooza once featured alt rock and heavy metal; these days, you can catch a set by DJ D-Sol, better known as David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. And if you love Lady Gaga’s album Chromatica and the associated HBO special Gaga Chromatica Ball, then don’t miss these limited edition Lady Gaga Chromatica-themed Oreos! 快进到今天，那种时代精神早已荡然无存。梅根·西·斯塔莉安（Megan Thee Stallion）是大力水手炸鸡（Popeyes）的加盟商，德雷克（Drake）想让你尝试在线赌博，魔力红乐队（Maroon 5）翻唱鲍勃·马利的《Three Little Birds》来向现代汽车（Hyundai）致敬。说唱歌手 Ice Spice 在她的第一首热门单曲上榜后不久，就与本·阿弗莱克（Ben Affleck）和唐恩都乐（Dunkin’ Donuts）合作推出了“Ice Spice Munchkins”饮料。我们看到朋克偶像伊基·波普（Iggy Pop）在卖保险，鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan）出现在维多利亚的秘密广告中。Lollapalooza 音乐节曾经以另类摇滚和重金属为主；如今，你可以在那里看到 DJ D-Sol 的表演，他更广为人知的身份是高盛集团（Goldman Sachs）的首席执行官大卫·所罗门（David Solomon）。如果你喜欢 Lady Gaga 的专辑《Chromatica》以及相关的 HBO 特别节目《Gaga Chromatica Ball》，那么千万别错过这些 Lady Gaga Chromatica 主题的限量版奥利奥！