ZARA LARSSON - Midnight Sun

By her own admission, Zara Maria Larsson never set out with grand artistic ambitions; years ago she candidly confessed in an interview: "I'd just like to be a good performer with good songs to sing." False modesty? Not even close; ever since winning the 2008 edition of "Sweden Got Talent" at just eleven years old (!), Zara has faithfully played the role of a generic, competent, colourless dance-pop vocalist, malleable over anything and everything. Who cares about building the baroque scaffolding of a Lady Gaga when a microphone and a couple of neon lights will do?

The streaming era has proved her right; even setting aside her native Sweden, where her albums and singles have charted high ever since her 2014 debut "1", Zara has built an unusually vast and uneven discography, studded with as much anonymous filler as international mega-hits, without ever quite rising to the level of a recognisable pop star. Even today, the girl is synonymous with streamingcore alongside peers such as Anne-Marie, Ava Max, Sigrid, Mabel, Bebe Rexha, Tove Lo and Becky Hill, but above all Jess Glynne, with whom she shares a debt of gratitude to Clean Bandit, who years ago invited her to sing on the ubiquitous "Symphony".

During the summer of 2025, a new milestone along the way: viral success online with the title track of her fifth studio album, "Midnight Sun", and a consequent place in the poptimist conversation. Has a star finally been born? No, but this time the production of "Midnight Sun" is a precise exercise in connect-the-dots, mapping out the latest contemporary trends.

Indeed, it's the sound that wins out over Zara and her songs; clean and glossy thanks to the work of a quartet of professionals (MNEK, Margo XS, Zhone, Troy Taylor), it borrows from all over the place, from the Scandinavian tradition to hyperpop and drum'n'bass, never original but always functional. The title track, for instance, weaves the electro subtleties of Grimes together with the Nineties bubblegum of Billie Piper, vampirising their moods into a catchy, perfectly anonymous product – proof of which lies in a live version in which the vocals are even more heavily processed than in the studio, because functioning online has to come before any human emotion.

What follows, then, is a curious string of impersonations: the brash "Pretty Ugly" is bellowed out in the style of Icona Pop, the theme of "Girl's Girl" waters down "Girl, So Confusing" by Charli XCX without mercy, "Hot & Sexy" plays around the queer beats of Honey Dijon, "Puss Puss" purrs like the latest Camila Cabello, and "Eurosummer" embraces, right from its title, the folksy dance sound of Alexandra Stan that's huge in that strip of land between Estonia and Romania. A shame, if anything, about the horrible EDM production of "Crush" – far better the shimmering run of breakbeats underpinning the romantic "Blue Moon", or the moment "The Ambition" chases the sinuous, all-legato melodicism of Ariana Grande.

It's with the pearly art-pop ballad "Saturn's Return", however, that Zara strikes the right balance between songwriting and production, drawing loose inspiration from Hannah Diamond and from the Caroline Polachek of "Pang", but shaping the result into a song that is personal and compelling in its own right. Because at just twenty-eight, Zara already has nearly two decades of career behind her, and on paper she has all the tools needed to do her job better than plenty of others – the shame is that "Midnight Sun" is exactly that, and only that: a job well done.

It may be tiresome to keep drawing comparisons, but we're no longer in the simple-minded 2010s of David Guetta; out there now are pop stars like Jade and Rose Gray, who are just as capable of capturing the Y2K electronic revival at the heart of "Midnight Sun", but who bring to it an immediately recognisable identity. Polished and assured, and cushioned by impressive streaming numbers, Zara Larsson has yet to reveal a personality of her own. Assuming she's even interested in doing so, mind you – at times she seems more than happy playing the interchangeable vocalist...

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23/01/2026