It's been more than a year since Taylor Swift released her fourth album, "Red." While she's put out several songs since then like "Sweeter Than Fiction" for the new film "One Chance," the country-pop star is now hard at work on her next album, which she teased to Billboard will likely have its share of collaborations.
"I'm really loving collaboration right now," Swift said. "I see it as a bit of an apprenticeship. I want to be around people who love writing songs and have done it for years. Every time I'm in a studio I'm learning, like how to build a drum track, and getting a new perspective on things. It's so thrilling to keep learning on your fifth album. As soon as [an album] comes out I'm figuring out what the next one will be. It's gotten to the point where each one is a reinvention, which is what I like best. I like it when it sounds new and people don't know where you're going to go next."
Fans and critics noted Swift's change of direction from country to a more contemporary country-pop and even alternative, pop-rock sound on "Red," which featured appearances from Ed Sheeran, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and production from hit-makers Max Martin and Shellback.
Swift began writing songs for her fifth album in July 2013, and while she hopes to team up once more with Sheeran and Lightbody, the singer revealed to Rolling Stone this summer that she's got "a really long list of the people [she] admires and [would] really love to go and contact," leaving fans left to wonder what direction her new album will take musically and stylistically.
"I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me," Swift told Rolling Stone. "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."
