By Sophia Angele-Kuehn

It’s May, and fans wait with bated breath in the Tokyo Dome to witness the first of Taylor Swift’s World Tour concerts for the album 1989. The beginning notes of Welcome to New York fill the stadium as the immense screen behind the stage glows with various skyscrapers. They come together to spell out NEW YORK in white lights as the star herself rises onto the stage, to deafening cheers.

It’s been a year since the release of Taylor’s latest album and a year to go until the next, but Taylor’s schedule is endlessly hectic. With her album 1989 reaching five million in sales and her World Tour rapidly selling out, Miss Swift is far from a dull and uneventful life. Her tour first launched this summer in Tokyo, and she’ll travel all over North America and Europe before stopping in Australia in December. And if performing every night wasn’t enough, in September the 25-year-old scored her first ever Emmy Award for Original Interactive Program. She was an executive producer for and starred in the app Amex Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience that lets fans explore the scenes of the music video Blank Space (which boasts over one billion views).

Taylor’s latest album is also far from being forgotten. Just recently the singer Ryan Adams released an album covering every song in 1989 with a calmer, more country- sounding vibe for those missing Swift’s older sound. Two weeks ago, both Swift’s and Adams’s albums were side by side in the Top 10 of Billboard’s 200 chart. Likewise, music videos are being released every three months to keep her songs fresh in everyone’s mind, with the latest being Wildest Dreams. Wildest Dreams, directed by Joseph Kahn, takes place in Africa in the scorching summer of 1950, and Taylor is a love-struck actress wishing for the classic Hollywood romance to be real.

Her actual love life might not be as idyllic. “I feel like watching my dating life has become a bit of a national pastime. And I’m just not comfortable providing that kind of entertainment anymore,” revealed Miss Swift to Rolling Stone last fall. “I don’t like how all these factors add up to build the pressure so high in a new relationship that it gets snuffed out before it even has a chance to start.” Since then, Taylor has focused on building her large circle of friends, which includes supermodel Karlie Kloss, actress and model Cara Delevigne, and fellow singer Selena Gomez (who all starred in her music video Bad Blood). Nevertheless, Taylor is currently dating Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, a relationship the tabloids happily divulge.

All this attention is certainly to her advantage, which leads to the question: what about her next album? Will it be as successful as 1989? “Entertainment Tonight” asked Miss Swift in April and she admitted, “I have no idea what the next album is going to be… That’s going to take a lot of thinking… I think it’s going to have something very, very different creatively.” Regardless of the songs the superstar will sing next, they will no doubt be widely anticipated, for Taylor Swift isn’t going anywhere.

Picture Credits: http://www.levisstadium.com, http://www.independent.co.uk, http://www.eonline.com