Zara Larsson is having her day in the sun

When Zara Larsson gets star-struck, she still goes shy. “We saw Benson Boone checking into our hotel,” she laughs, face close to her camera as if she’s gossiping with a friend. “And I just couldn’t say hi… Which is weird, right?” It’s funny, too, because between herself and the Canadian artist, Larsson has been the famous one for over half her life. On our midday Zoom, the ‘Ruin My Life’ singer is fresh-faced, hair pulled back and in sweats, with two yellow star-shaped pimple patches pressed to her cheek (although it’s hard to imagine she’s ever had a blemish). It all feels worlds away from the glitter-drenched mop of blonde hair who strode across global arenas with Tate McRae on the American artist’s Miss Possessive tour this September — all crystal-studded corset, micro hotpants and towering platform heels. Right now, though, the pop machine can wait.

For someone who’s surpassed ten and a half billion streams on Spotify, Larsson’s approach to press is refreshingly unguarded. There’s no entourage or stylist — just Larsson in her flat, mid-battle with a temperamental Wi-Fi router. “Sorry, my connection is so shit,” she says, laughing breezily as she jumps around the screen trying to fix it. In this brief interlude, it strikes me that every woman of my generation is familiar with Larsson’s songs — ‘Lush Life’, ‘Never Forget You’ and ‘Symphony’, perhaps, most noticeably — the big, glassy anthems that have formed the backbone of many a teenage girl’s pre-drinks. Yet few could describe the person behind them in any authentic way.

With the Swedish singer’s latest album, Midnight Sun, that may all be about to change. “This is the most ‘me’ record I’ve ever made,” she says. “I wrote every song on it. That’s a first for me. I have never truly written an album before.” The singer lights up with a sense of pride that feels long overdue. Larsson may have started performing on TV at ten, signed her first record deal at fifteen and, by twenty, had global hits — but for years she was the voice, not always the author, of her story. “I used to think that being a singer meant you just perform,” she tells me. “I wanted to be a performer. But now I want to make the whole thing — the songs, the videos, the visuals, what I wear. It’s not just performing, it’s also creating, and that is so much more fulfilling.”

Larsson recalls how she used to religiously check X for comments and reviews, observe streams and sales. She rarely does this anymore. “When you’re not making your work, you can only lean on statistics to prove its worth,” she says. “The less I care, the freer I can be creatively, and the more I get involved — which, ironically, leads to better music.” Larsson credits producer MNEK, the same collaborator from her earliest sessions, for helping her find that confidence. “He was the first person I ever wrote a song with,” she says. “Back then I didn’t even know I could. I just thought, Oh, that’s what other people do. But he made it feel easy.” That first session produced ‘Never Forget You’. And now, a decade later, the pair have reunited. He was “on speed-dial” for Midnight Sun, and the full- circle symmetry isn’t lost on her.

“Making this album brought me back to my first EP that I only released in Sweden,” the singer muses. “It was about having fun and speaking honestly. I felt no pressure because I had nothing to compare it to.” Her creative process this time, however, was slower, more deliberate and more personal. Instead of pop’s usual “speed-dating” cycle of producers and writers, Larsson stayed in one room with a small “bubble” of close friends, producer Margo XS and songwriter Helena Gao. She describes this elite network as “people who understand me and see me”. “It’s very personal to share anything creatively — it’s a very intimate experience,” she says. “We’d talk for hours about shared experiences, shared cultural references and then write for twenty minutes. The songs came out of those conversations. There was no vision, it just unfolded as it was happening.”

The result is an album that sounds less like a product, and more like a glimpse of Larsson’s “soul”. She laughs again, aware of the earnestness of the notion, before adding, “But yeah”. She sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth in a Gen-Z, peace-sign- adjacent tic that dissolves any egotism. “A very Swedish trait,” she confesses, pulling herself up on this act of self-deprication. “I’ve got to shut up. Like, I’m happy and proud of this. I put this on in my car. I would never do that a couple of years ago.” That’s because this time, it’s music she wants to inhabit, not just sell. Fans won’t lose the showgirl — the spark is still very much intact — but the grounding feels new. The titular track, ‘Midnight Sun’, may be going viral for its Y2K-style music video and pop-princess sheen, but its core is quieter — the memories of a care-free Swedish summer night where the sun never sets. “It is the ultimate childhood nostalgia,” Larsson says, before pausing. “And the older I get and the more I travel, the more I want to be in nature. ‘Midnight Sun’ has beautiful symbolism because it is something you want to last forever, but it’s beautiful because it can’t.”

But returning to a state of nature is only part of it. As the album moves between “loud and kind of obnoxious” pop elements, and slower, exposed cuts, the duality feels intentional. “Part of being a person,” Larsson explains. “We all have layers”. For the singer, that flows between confidence and vulnerability, all- consuming ambition and the desire to just be. “Sometimes I really feel like, Oh fuck this, fuck all of this,” she confesses. “I just want to connect with my friends, and who cares if anybody likes me? But the next day it’s like, I want all the bags in the world, I want a nice apartment, I want everybody to love me.” ‘Ambition’ — another song title from the album — runs deep. “It’s part of my personality and always has been. If I’m going to do something, I want to be the best at it, because what’s the point?” And that, as the singer is very aware, cuts both ways. “I think there could be a lot of hobbies that I’d get enjoyment from. But I know if I started doing… What is that thing where you shape clay? My sister loves it…” “Pottery?” I offer. “Yeah, pottery. I’d have to be the best in the world at pottery. My whole life I have viewed that if I win, that’s expected. But if I don’t win, then the world is falling down.”

Something else that’s changed for the singer is her approach to sex appeal. A later song on the album, ‘Hot and Sexy’, talks to her wish that women be left “unbothered” — giving them space to be, well, hot and sexy. In a pop landscape where desirability has long been currency — Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, Britney Spears before them — Larsson has always pushed the boundary on her own terms. “When I was fifteen, my mum and manager were always like, Please put on clothes,” she laughs. “I just wanted to wear a bra and a string. I wanted to be sexy.” She still does, but the motivation is different now. “I love being sexy,” she says. “But I also love being naked and free. I come from a naked family, and that doesn’t necessarily mean sexual. I think they’re two different things. But obviously they go hand in hand.”

Larsson knows the contradictions — vulnerability, objectification, self-expression, freedom — all live side by side. “It’s the classic trap for women, in pop music especially, who have to perform this femininity to get some sort of attention,” she says. “As a woman, you lowkey put on drag everyday to go on stage.” But the singer refutes the binary. She’s not giving up the showgirl, she’s simply making room for the rest of her. “Femininity doesn’t have to be performative,” she shrugs. “But if it is? Fuck it, make it fun.” A mischievous smile suggests Larsson is fully aware of the provocation. “Honestly, guys should do more. Buy a concealer. Do [their] hair in a funny way. Have some fun.”

“So what now?” I ask tentatively. “Does Midnight Sun feel like the end of something, or just the start?” “I feel like people are finally getting me now,” Larsson says. “This is the beginning of my true artistry. People are becoming aware of me, not just my songs.” With that, we say goodbye with the sense that something has clicked, the fierce exterior and the woman behind it finally moving as one. And as we hang up, Larsson’s warmth feels genuine, like a midnight sun that refuses to apologise for shining.