Seven time Grammy winner and international superstar, Taylor Swift, is currently in the process of writing and recording her still untitled fifth studio album, the follow-up to 2012’s multi-platinum blockbuster, Red.
After writing 2010’s Speak Now completely on her own, Swift decided to spread her wings on Red and reach out to various collaborators that she had always admired. These collaborators included music industry greats Dan Wilson, Max Martin, and Johan Shellback, amongst others.
Red marked a musical departure for Swift and the sixteen song set marked her most musically diverse album to date. Swift has made it known that she always wants to be reinventing herself lyrically and sonically from album to album and from what we know so far, she is assembling an all-star team of collaborators for her new project.
Swift posted a photo on her Instagram account on February 14, 2014 and proclaimed “It was a studio Valentines Day with Max and Johan!” The photo features the singer with monster hit makers Max Martin and Johan Shellback, who Swift collaborated with on her #1 hits “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and “22,” hanging out in a recording studio on Valentine’s Day. Swift has already stated that she will be doing “a lot more than three songs” with the hit making duo this time around after the huge success of the aforementioned tracks.
In an interview with Billboard.com (shared on YouTube), acclaimed songwriter Dianne Warren has confirmed that she has written a song with Taylor for the new record. Warren said that she is “excited about the song we did. It’s pretty cool.” Frontman of One Republic, Ryan Tedder, has also confirmed that he has done some recent work with Swift for her new album. He had this to say about working with her:
I did a little stuff with Taylor, who’s probably the fastest songwriter I ever met in my life. I can go on record saying that Taylor is genuinely the quickest songwriter I’ve ever – for anyone who doubts it she writes her own stuff. Any idea and you’re like “Yeah I don’t know if I like that lyric” and she’ll have three options, replaced within 10 seconds, she’s like bam bam bam. She’s bit of a prodigy, bit of a songwriting prodigy.
Swift is well known for her songwriting skills. She was a hired songwriter at the tender of age of fourteen (before she even signed her first record deal) with SONY/ATV Publishing. She has been awarded the Nashville Songwriter’s award six years in a row, recently set a record at the American Music Awards after winning Artist of the Year for the third time in November, and is the youngest person ever to win Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards (for Fearless in 2010). Her most recent effort, Red, was also nominated for Album of the Year at this year’s Grammy Awards.
Swift typically takes about two years in between albums, which she says allows her to live life and have a great pool of experiences to draw upon and write about. Swift recently told Billboard that “there are probably seven or eight songs that I know I want on the record. It’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted.”
Fans of the songstress will have to wait until sometime during the fourth quarter of 2014 to hear the new material that she has been working on — but don’t fret too much because it will surely be worth the wait.