Taylor Swift: 1989 was a hard sell

Taylor Swift was frustrated when convincing her team to record 1989.

The 24-year-old singer's first pure pop album took the chart by storm after its release in October, topping the charts in the UK, US and Australia, among other countries. It's a new sound for Taylor, who has been recognised for her contribution to country music with albums such as Fearless, which scooped Best Country Album at the Grammys in 2010, with its track White Horse named Best Country Song.

Despite her obvious talent, Taylor found herself trying to win people over when sharing her dream of 1989.

"I remember all the sit-downs in the conference rooms... they said, 'Are you really sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to call the album 1989? We think it's a weird title. Are you sure you want to put an album cover out that has less than half of your face on it? Are you positive that you want to take a genre that you cemented yourself in, and switch to one that you are a newcomer to?'" she recalled to Billboard magazine, which has named her its Woman of the Year. "And answering all of those questions with 'Yes, I'm sure' really frustrated me at the time - like, 'Guys, don't you understand, this is what I'm dying to do?'"

Her tracks are undoubtedly catchy and her song-writing skills have been praised by many. She is inspired by events that have taken place in her own life and Taylor has no plans to recite someone else's lyrics to make a hit.

"I'm not going to be one of those artists who walks in [to a room with songwriters] and says, 'I don't know, what do you want to write about?' or one of those things where they say, 'So what's going on in your life?,' and I tell them and then they have to write a song about it. I wouldn't be a singer if I weren't a songwriter. I have no interest in singing someone else's words," she insisted.

Taylor also touched upon when she told Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta of her new venture, sending him into "a state of semi-panic" when she refused to create any country songs.