Westlife 西域男孩
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Do any of you like Westlife?
No. Kind of. They’re old. They’re rubbish. They’re out of date.
Andrea: ‘Flying without Wings’.
Jean: ‘You Raise Me Up’.
Andrea: And ‘Uptown Girl’.
Jean: 这些歌曲有一个什么样的共同点呢？那就是，他们都是同一个流行组合唱红的歌曲，而这个流行组合就是 Westlife “西域男孩”!
Andrea: Hello. I’m Andrea.
Jean: 大家好，我是董征。
Andrea: And today in Ask About Britain, you’ve guessed it – we’re answering a question about the boy band, Westlife.
Jean: 国内的一位听众朋友 Gao Yuanxue 给我们来信提了这样一个问题：他说，“西域男孩” Westlife 是英国自甲壳虫乐队之后可以说是在世界上最成功的一个流行组合，那么英国本国的青少年对“西域男孩”又怎么看呢？除了“西域男孩”，英国年轻人还同样喜爱哪些其他的流行组合和歌手呢？
Andrea: As you heard at the beginning of this programme, some teenagers don’t think Westlife are that great. Here’s what another British teenager has to say about them.
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I don’t know too much about Westlife because Westlife was more or less before, like, I was the age of understanding music a lot. But like of what I know of them they’re quite good musicians. I think Westlife’s got quite good voices, personally. I’d go out and listen to it. I wouldn’t personally like to listen to it all day every day. But like hear it every once in a while. Maybe like, quite middle-aged people might like this because they probably know them quite a lot.
Jean: 这位英国少年给我们解释了一下为什么 Westlife 在英国年轻人当中并不是那么受欢迎的原因。
Andrea: It’s been over 10 years since Westlife first started which means most teenagers are far too young to remember them.
Jean: 是的，“西域男孩”出道至今已经十年多了，所以现在十几岁的英国青少年其实对他们并不熟悉了。
Andrea: But this teen does think they’re good musicians and have good voices.
Jean: 不过他可不想一天到晚每天听他们的歌。 All day, every day.
Andrea: He thinks that the people who listen to Westlife are middle-aged.
Jean: Middle-aged. 中年人。
Andrea: But whatever people do think about Westlife, they’re still going strong after all these years. They’re still together and they’re still making music. But how did it all begin? Here’s Mark from Westlife.
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Well myself, Shane and Kian we went to school since we were 11 or 12 together, so we’ve known each other since we were kids and we kind of started getting into music. It kind of just went from there. There was never kind of a period where we weren’t progressing. And once we finished school we sort of met Louis around the same time and it just went from there and a year and a half later we had a record deal and now we’re ten years into it, you know? We’ve just kept going on and on and on.
Jean: “西域男孩”的这几位成员在上学的时候就是朋友了，而且都是从很小的时候就开始玩音乐了。
Andrea: Mark says “it went from there”. Their careers just happened after that. They met their producer, Louis Walsh and were given a record deal – and that’s the story.
Jean: 后来他们遇到了音乐制作人producer Louis Walsh，也从他这里拿到了第一份唱片合同。 Record deal.
Andrea: But Westlife is only one of the many boy bands in Britain.
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There’s Westlife, Boyzone, Blue, Take That. Take That’s come back.
Jean: 最近，这些十几年前红极一时的流行男子组合们又开始要复出了。A comeback.
Andrea: In fact, Westlife, who have been taking a break for the last year are due to release a new album in the next few months. But, who do teenagers think are great?
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Beyonce, JLS. Chris Brown. They’re modern! They’re modern! They’re fresh, yeah.
Jean: 刚才大家听到的这几个名字就是当今英国的青少年喜欢的流行歌手。
Andrea: Beyonce, JLS, Chris Brown. They like them because they’re new, modern and fresh.
Jean: 他们说到的 fresh 在这里指的不是食物的新鲜，而是这些歌手流行创新又很酷的风格。
Andrea: Back to Westlife. What does the future hold in store for them?
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As a band I think we’re all really looking forward to the future, you know, but it’s all about the songs for us now. We want to find the best songs in the world, like. We’re very much looking forward to coming back and we can’t wait to make another album, you know?
Jean: 准备重新复出的 Westlife 对前途充满期待。
Andrea: Oh I’m really looking forward to seeing what they have in store next!
Jean: Me too Andrea. 希望我们今天的节目回答了Gao Yuanxue 的问题。那我们今天BBC Learning English 为您提供的《英国问答》节目就到这里了，我们下次节目再见！Bye!
Andrea: Bye!
英语单词小笔记：
1. middle-aged 中年人
2. producer 制作人
3. record deal 唱片合约
4. a comeback 东山再起
5. boy band 男子音乐组合