'Taylor Swift's writing brilliance freaks people out'

Jack Antonoff is the producer behind modern pop’s biggest records from Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club to Swift's 1989. He tells El Hunt how he's become so prolific and why his new record is his best yet

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I THINK when something is so brilliant, it freaks people out,” says 39-year-old Jack Antonoff, pondering what exactly makes his long-term collaborator Taylor Swift’s songwriting so unique — and why some people are so eager to be sceptical. “I’ve seen this in lots of different areas where people are really, really hoping to prove something wrong, or prove something is hypocritical. It’s definitely the worst of us.”

Though Antonoff claims he isn’t bothered by others’ opinions, he is frustrated when he hears “remarkable factual inaccuracies about how the records I make are being made.” He gladly went to bat for Swift against Damon Albarn, for instance, after the Blur frontman falsely claimed that she “doesn’t write her own songs”.

And in fairness, Antonoff — who’s speaking to me from a mystery music studio — knows a great deal about what’s going on behind the scenes in pop right now. As well as being a musician, he is one of the world’s most influential music producers.

Over the past decade, he has racked up the kind of greatest hits list that most producers can only dream of: Lorde’s Melodrama, Taylor Swift’s 1989, and Lana Del Rey’s Norman F***ing Rockwell, to name a few. He remains a go-to collaborator for all three artists, working on almost every single one of their subsequent albums — his bright, cinematic, widescreen production helping to forge the sound of pop as we know it now. Elsewhere he’s worked with everyone from St Vincent and Olivia Rodrigo, to Clairo, FKA twigs, and The 1975.