Semisonic's Dan Wilson rolls on with Taylor Swift, Pink

If there was any doubt Dan Wilson's career would see a nice bump following his songwriter and co-producer contributions on the Billboard-ruling, Grammy-sweeping Adele record, that bump has pretty well turned into an explosion. The Twin Cities-reared Semisonic frontman helped craft tracks for just-released albums by Pink and Missy Higgins, and word is out that he also worked on the upcoming record by Adele's only real rival among top-selling female recording artists, Taylor Swift.

In an interview with Rolling Stone about her new effort, Swift spoke glowingly about working with Wilson and another proven pop hitmaker, Max Martin (Katy Perry/Britney Spears): "I felt like an apprentice," she said. "They taught me so much about melodic sense, and they let me do what I love, which is the lyrics."

Swift's album, "Red," arrives Oct. 22 with expectations higher than a Snoop Dogg after-party, since her work with Martin and Wilson signals an even farther move away from her Nashville roots to more mainstream pop. Martin co-wrote the already-smashing first single "We Are Never Getting Back Together."

Wilson's contribution to the new Pink album also marks something of a sea change for the ever-maturing starlet. He co-wrote the record's closing track, "The Great Escape," a dramatic, heartbroken piano ballad that very much sounds like her own "Someone Like You." The "lyric video" for the song is posted below.

Even amid all this, Wilson continues to do the things that his hometown fans still know and love him for best: sing his own songs. He was back in town again last weekend performing with Semisonic at a private fundraiser for the Obama campaign. He is also nearing completion of his second solo album, which is scheduled to land sometime next year. Unless Madonna or Celine Dion come calling, that is.