"The floodgates just opened the last couple weeks," she says of the songwriting process. "I'm getting to that point where I'm irritating to be around because I'll be with you for half the conversation and then the second half of the conversation I'm clearly editing the second verse of whatever I'm writing in my head."
On Red, Swift experimented with pop collaborations, writing with hitmakers like Max Martin, Shellback and Dan Wilson. And she already has a list of artists she wants to work with on her next LP.
"I really loved collaborating," she says. "You work with a lot of different people and you find the people you have this dream connection with in the studio. I know those people and I know the ones I want to go back to. But I also have a really long list of the people I admire and I would really love to go and contact. So that's kind of where that is."
"I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What's the point? It's so overwhelming that when you're starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you're willing to evolve and experiment. If you're willing to become a different version of yourself, you can really go anywhere with it. And that's kind of where I am. The kind of the laboratory experimental stage of really catching onto a new thing that I'm liking."
In theory, it’s easier to play music in an arena than on a stage in the middle of a football field. The sound can be better controlled, it’s more intimate and lighting effects are often more impressive. But there are a handful of elemental musicians who are just as good — if not better — in a stadium. Bruce Springsteen is one of them. After a stellar show in front of 55,000 ecstatic fans in the Meadowlands, you can add Taylor Swift to that short list, too.
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But now that she has shed genre like a dress that doesn’t fit anymore, she’s free to be the character actress she always was. Swift has always been closer to ’70s singer-songwriters such as Carole King and (especially) Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie than she is to an artist like Carrie Underwood, and although the glossy pop numbers like "22," "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" sounded terrific through the stadium sound system, the concert was at its best when the star sat alone at the piano or strummed an acoustic guitar.
"I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point? It’s so overwhelming that when you’re starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you’re willing to evolve and experiment. If you’re willing to become a different version of yourself, you can really go anywhere with it. And that’s kind of where I am. The kind of the laboratory experimental stage of really catching onto a new thing that I’m liking."
