Taylor Swift performs at the 2013 CMA Music Festival in Nashville,Tenn. AP FILE PHOTO
NASHVILLE, Tennessee—Songwriting is the topic of the moment for Taylor Swift. The 23-year-old pop star was honored for a record sixth time as Songwriter-Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International, surpassing guys like Vince Gill and Alan Jackson.
She earned the award with 14 hits in the Top 30 over the last year, a tribute to the popularity of her multiplatinum fourth album, “Red.”
As Swift accepts the award, she’s six months deep in the songwriting process for her next album. “The goal for the next album is to continue to change, and never change in the same way twice,” the seven-time Grammy winner shared. “How do I write these figurative diary entries in ways that I’ve never written before, and to a sonic backdrop I’ve yet to explore?
“It’s my fifth album, which is crazy to think about, but what I’m noticing about it so far is, it’s definitely taking a different turn than anything I’ve done.”
Swift sat down with The Associated Press after the ribbon-cutting on the new $4-million Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in her adopted hometown to talk about what’s to come with the new recording, her six Country Music Association Award nominations, her friend and fellow Nashville resident, Ed Sheeran, and Madonna.
Next month, you leave on a stadium tour of Australia, making you the first female solo performer to tour that country since Madonna 20 years ago. Madonna was the top pop star in the world at the time. Do you see yourself as that kind of pop star?
Better performer
I would never see myself that way. I see myself as this girl who writes songs in her bedroom. You can kind of dress it up all you want and you can put together an amazing theatrical production, you can become a better performer as time goes by, and you can try to excite people. It’s important that I don’t necessarily think too hard about what everybody else’s perception of me is—or else, I’d just get completely lost in it!
You said recently you’ve been working on songs for the new album for about six months. What can you tell us about it?
It’s too early to tell who are going to be my predominant collaborators—but, I do know that my absolute dream collaborators were Shellback and Max Martin.
I’ve never been so challenged as a songwriter. I’ve never been so excited to show up to the studio every day, just because you never know what we’re going to put together!
I’ll bring in ideas, and they’ll take such a different turn than where I thought they were going, and that level of unexpected spontaneity is something that thrills me in the process of making music. I love people who have endless, strange and exciting ideas.
How far are you willing to push the boundaries of your sound?
My favorite thing about Nashville is that it’s a music hub that accepts all genres, and I think there’s been a fusing of genres lately that, for me, makes me happy and excited!
I am blown away at getting six CMA nominations in a year that I pushed the boundaries of what a genre is more than ever before. I’m very happy that people understood what I was doing conceptually. I love exploring! AP