Eric Church Calls Taylor Swift’s Pop Record ‘Brilliant’

You wouldn't necessarily picture Eric Church sitting around his house listening to Taylor Swift records, but in a surprising new interview, he reveals he's actually a fan.

Swift made enormous waves in the country world when she announced that her new album would be her first entirely pop offering. She had to fight her label and even her own team over her new direction, and some fans accused her of selling out by leaving her country roots.

But Church sees it differently. "From Taylor's standpoint, I think the record is brilliant," he tells the New Orleans Time-Picayune. "I own the record. You know what I love about it? It's creative. It's what she wanted to do."

Swift's gamble has paid off. '1989' has scored back-to-back No. 1 hits with 'Shake It Off' and 'Blank Space,' and it outsold the 'Frozen' soundtrack to become the top-selling album of 2014.

"What she'll do next, I have no idea. And that's what I think is cool about it," Church adds. "I have no clue where she's heading. That's the exciting part. When you do something like that, it kind of shakes everything up so much -- no pun intended -- that you're intrigued. That's exciting to me."

Church's latest album, 'The Outsiders,' saw him exploring the outer edges of modern commercial country, incorporating Americana and even heavy metal into his existing palette of influences. Still, he says he has no plans to follow Swift in switching genres.

"I'm not about announcing, 'Hey, we're in this genre,'" he observes. "I'm not sure where we fit. Music is music. Some fits in different places than others, and that's OK. So no, I have no similar plans. If I made an announcement like that, they would probably go, 'He's already there, isn't he?'"

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