Taylor Swift enjoyed not having to "check a list" with her latest albums.
Taylor Swift
The 'cardigan' hitmaker released 'folklore' and its sister album 'evermore' this year and has enjoyed being able to pen songs without a usual "checklist" in her mind as she used to feel a "lot of pressure" to craft particular types of songs.
Speaking about her spontaneity on these records, she said: "Pure is a really, really perfect word for that because what happens to you as your career builds and builds and builds and builds is that if you've accomplished a thing in the past, all of a sudden you're expected to accomplish that thing plus another new thing, plus this other thing over here. It becomes sort of like I had felt at times when I felt a lot of pressure, I had felt like I was doing some sort of obstacle course. And that's not how you should feel when you're creating. You shouldn't feel like, 'I need to make a track list where this one's for the stadium show, this one's for radio, this one's for people who want to get in their feelings.' Check, check, check, and you can end up doing that."
And Taylor also revealed it is something other artists like Ed Sheeran have felt too.
She added to Apple Music's Zane Lowe: "And it's good to have friends who are artists who have similar pressures. Like Ed Sheeran and I talk about this a great deal. This was a time when we both stepped back, and I would say to him, 'This is the first time I felt like I threw the checklist away.' Like I threw it away and I definitely could have gone into the pandemic thinking, 'I've got to wait for everything to open up so I can do things exactly the way that I am used to doing them.' But then about three days in, I thought, 'Wait, this could be an opportunity for me to do things in a way I haven't ever done them before. What would my work sound like if I took away all of my fear-based check listing that I have inflicted on myself?' So I guess - I know the answer now."
Tagged in Taylor Swift Ed Sheeran