Zara Larsson has entered her mythological nymph era. She’s got a new album called Midnight Sun, a muddy video with glittering cuts, and enough “don’t give a fuck” energy to cancel your algorithm. “I don’t give a fuck—but I do care a lot,” she says, somewhere between a smirk and a prayer. “That’s the vibe.”
Coming quick on the heel's of 2023’s Venus, the Swedish pop powerhouse is finally breaking her own cycle of perfectionist paralysis. “It took me four years between So Good and Poster Girl. Now it’s been one,” she says. “Looking back, one of my biggest mistakes was not releasing anything. I was just in my head. Is it good enough? Will it be as successful? And now I’m like... whatever. I just want to have fun.”
It’s the kind of artistic about-face you get when you stop chasing hits and start chasing energy. For Zara, that meant assembling what she calls her dream team. “It was immaculate vibes,” she says. “Every day we walked into the studio and made three bangers. We were like, what is happening?”
What was happening, apparently, was a pop girl quietly transforming into a pop artist. “I didn’t start off writing,” she admits. “I just wanted a mic in my hand and a stage to perform on. But the older I get, the more I want to be an artist—not just a performer. I want it to be my words. I want to create the world.”
She credits MNEK for creating a space where she could be both confident and vulnerable. “Not just the sassy fun girl,” she adds, “but comfortable being myself.”
Zara describes the Midnight Sun sessions like she’s talking about a séance. “We would just connect our little brains to the song god,” she says, dead serious. “You get into that creative flow and the ego disappears. There’s no right or wrong. The songs just appeared.”
And then there’s Pretty Ugly, a deliciously bratty lead single that sounds like someone spilled glitter all over a Garbage record. “We were like, I want to shout on a song,” she laughs. “I’m not trying to be pretty. It’s not clean. It’s not polished. And that’s the point.”
Enter Margot XS, who specializes in trance, punk, and other genres that would normally panic a major label A&R rep. “She brought that world into the pop world,” Zara explains. “She’s still got her sauce, but over the top of my pop toplines. It’s way more exciting than trying to force a pop producer to be edgy.”
The spiritual core of the record is the title track, “Midnight Sun,” which functions as both a literal ode to Sweden’s endless summer days and a love letter to simply existing. “It’s about joy. About life. I wanted to capture that feeling of being at my summer house, with my friends and family, when the sun never sets and it feels like it could last forever.”
The whole album is wrapped in a kind of Scandinavian folklore filter—like what would happen if a wood sprite from a Björk video got a record deal and moved to L.A. “I wanted to be this little nymph that goes to the city,” Zara says, somehow making it sound both enchanting and feral.
She’s bringing that energy to her upcoming tour with Tate McRae. “She’s a hustler,” Zara says admiringly. “Always working, always on the road. I’m excited to share the stage—and maybe steal some of her fans.”
And while Midnight Sun won’t officially drop until the fall, Zara’s already debuting tracks live, road-testing new material like it’s a punk zine. “Every song deserves its moment. Honestly, I’d make them all singles if I could.”
Or as she puts it in one of her more cosmic philosophies: “Every song already exists. It’s just an ice sculpture waiting to be carved out.”
Watch the full interview above and then check out the video below.
