評論
打印
Sweetheart Dethroned
甜心隕落
For some years Whitney Houston held the post of America's Sweetheart,pretty, God-fearing and patriotic.
曾經有許多年，她是美國人心目中的甜心。她美麗動人，虔誠愛主，忠誠愛國。
She went to the White House to discuss youth projects,and set up a foundation to fight illiteracy.
她曾在白宮討論過青年計劃，也曾建立以消除文盲為目的的基金會。
Her rendering of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Superbowl in 1991, during the Gulf war-cuddly as a teddy-bear in a white tracksuit-was so joyously rousing that it was reissued in the wake of the September 2001 attacks.
她曾在1991年的超級碗上演唱美國國歌。當時正值海灣戰爭期間，她穿著白色運動服，就像一只可愛的泰迪熊。她當時如此歡快地歌唱致使這場演唱的唱片后來被重新發行，以喚醒2001年9·11襲擊過后美國人的活力。
Music allowed her to break onto MTV and the late-night chat shows,forging a new path for black women as Michael Jackson had done for the men.
她的美妙歌聲讓她頻頻出現在MTV和深夜談話節目中，正如邁克杰克遜為黑人男子所作出的貢獻一樣，在音樂的世界里，惠特尼·休斯頓也為黑人女子鍛造了一條新的道路，
It also proved, to many blacks,that she was not black enough,showing none of their fury and very little of the soulful gospel depths of Auntie Ree and Cousin Dionne.
在許多黑人看來，音樂同樣暴露了她不是一個合格的“黑人”。她沒有展現黑人的暴怒，也很少像其教母安蒂娜·雷和堂姐狄昂那樣展示福音歌的靈魂深度。
The cutting urban hip-hop of the 1980s she found ugly,like listening to her brothers boast of the women they'd laid.
她覺得80年代用語尖刻的城市hip-hop粗俗難聽，就像聽她的兄弟在吹噓他們睡過的姑娘那樣。
When she tried angrier songs herself-as in "It's not Right But it's Okay", in 1998-they still seemed as cool and glossy as her blue sheath dress.
后來她開始嘗試演唱那些憤怒的歌曲，諸如在1998年演唱的“不對但是沒關系”。 這些歌曲聽起來仍然像她那件藍色女緊身連衣裙那樣，冷淡而又大氣。
The scratchy defiance of later albums owed more to the drug-ravaged thinness of her voice than the miseries of her recent life.
她后來的專輯中透出的嘶啞叛逆感，更多是因為她那被毒品摧毀而變得細弱的聲音而非她近期痛苦生活的感悟。
Who she was, and what she really wanted,remained as unclear as her bathtub death in a Los Angeles hotel on the night before the Grammys-at which Adele, another big belter in the Houston style,carried away most of the prizes.
她是怎樣的人，她真正想要的是什么，正如她在洛杉磯酒店浴缸里的死那樣，仍然撲朔迷離。
She needed the give and take of an audience,Miss Houston said.
休斯頓女士曾經說過，她需要觀眾的互敬互讓。
Besides, God had given her this gift to use.
此外，上帝賜予了她天賦以供她發揮。
Yet told by Oprah Winfrey in 2009 that her voice was a national treasure,and that some people thought she had squandered it,she could only whisper, terror-struck, "That's heavy."
然而，奧普拉·溫弗瑞曾于2009年說過，惠特尼·休斯頓的嗓音是國家的財富，而有些人覺得她浪費了這個財富。對于這些言論，惠特尼·休斯頓受寵若驚，她只能低聲耳語地說，“這，很沉重。”
Too heavy, was perhaps the truth.
太沉重了，也許這就是惠特尼·休斯頓的真正境遇。
