Taylor Swift is named songwriter-artist of the decade
The country singer turned pop star, Taylor Swift, has been named the ‘Songwriter-Artist of the Decade’ by the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI).
The musician accepted her award in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, where she gave a 13-minute speech to discuss topics such as re-recording her first six albums, her approach to writing, and the extended version of ‘All Too Well’.
The award comes after Swift was criticised for her writing skills by Blur and Gorillaz’s Damon Albarn earlier this year, which led to the pop artist biting back with a Tweet that read: “I write ALL my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really fucked up to try and discredit my writing.”
“I’m up here receiving this beautiful award for a decade of work, and I can’t possibly explain how nice that feels. Because the way I see it, this is an award that celebrates a culmination of moments,” she exclaimed at the awards ceremony.
Swift added: “This award celebrates my family and my co-writers and my team. My friends and my fiercest fans and my harshest detractors and everyone who entered my life or left it. Because when it comes to my songwriting and my life, they are one and the same.”
She also detailed how she divides her writing style into three different categories, “quill”, “fountain pen” and “glitter gel”, based on the pen she imagines herself writing the lyrics with.
Whereas she imagines quill-written songs to have “a modern storyline or references, with a poetic twist,” glitter gel songs are “frivolous, carefree, bouncy, syncopated perfectly to the beat.”
The singer added: “Writing songs is my life’s work and my hobby and my never-ending thrill. I am moved beyond words that you, my peers, decided to honour me in this way for work I’d still be doing if I had never been recognised for it.”
After her speech, she performed the ten-minute version of ‘All Too Well’ for the audience. The accolade comes in anticipation of her 10th studio album Midnights, which she worked on with producer Jack Antonoff and is set for release next month.
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