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Taylor Swift writes essay on the 'power of pop' amid speculation about new album release

Pop star appears to be teasing fans with build-up towards a new project on her Instagram page

Roisin O'Connor
Music Correspondent
Thursday 28 February 2019 15:20 GMT
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Taylor Swift reputation Stadium Tour trailer

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Taylor Swift has written an essay about the impact some of her favourite pop songs had on her life and career, as part of a cover feature in the April edition of Elle Magazine.

As well as starring on the cover, Swift contributed an article where she discussed how music fans increasingly seek a connection with the music they listen to.

“We like being confided in and hearing someone say ‘this is what I went through’ as proof to us that we can get through our own struggles,” she writes.

“We actually do NOT want our pop music to be generic. I think a lot of music lovers want some biographical glimpse into the world of our narrator, a hole in the emotional walls people put up around themselves to survive.”

She adds: ”This glimpse into the artist’s story invites us to connect it to our own, and in the best case scenario, allows us the ability to assign that song to our memories. It’s this alliance between a song and our memories of the times it helped us heal, or made us cry, dance, or escape that truly stands the test of time. Just like a great book.”

Swift’s essay comes after the pop star posted several images on Instagram that appear to be counting down to what many fans speculate is the announcement of her seventh studio album.

Her sixth record, reputation, was released in December 2017 to critical acclaim, and had the biggest sales figure for any album that year.

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