Cop a gander of Taylor Swift!

As rumors of new music gather steam, the singer pours fuel on the flames with a surprise spread in the April issue of ELLE UK.

The colorful shoot, which was lensed by Quentin Jones, is paired with an interview which sees the star open up about her approach to making tunes.

Peep pics and quotes below…

Speaking on music, the 29-year-old wrote:

“The fun challenge of writing a pop song is squeezing those evocative details into the catchiest melodic cadence you can possibly think of. I thrive on the challenge of sprinkling personal mementos and shreds of reality into a genre of music that is universally known for being, well, universal. You’d think that as pop writers, we’re supposed to be writing songs that everyone can sing along to, so you’d assume they would have to be pretty lyrically generic… AND YET the ones I think cut through the most are actually the most detailed, and I don’t mean in a Shakespearean sonnet type of way, although I love Shakespeare as much as the next girl. Obviously. (See ‘Love Story,’ 2009).”

She went on to add:

“In modern pop, songs/bops/chunes including extremely personal details like ‘Kiki, do you love me’ and ‘Baby pull me closer in the backseat of your rover’ have been breaking through on the most global cultural level. This year on tour, I got to hear stadium crowds passionately sing along to a young woman from Cuba  [Camila Cabello] singing about ‘Havana.’”

I think these days, people are reaching out for connection and comfort in 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. 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. 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.”

As earlier reported, Swift is set to be honored at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 14th for the colossal success of her Reputation Stadium Tour.

Is this all collectively building towards a chart return? Stay tuned.

Your thoughts?