For Zara Larsson, It’s Always Swedish Girl Summer

When Zara Larsson is behind the wheel, you might want to watch out. “I rent a car in L.A., and every time I give it back, I have to fix something,” the singer says. “One time, I backed into this hole in an empty parking lot, and I hit every single panel that could be hit in the back of my car. They were like, ‘That’s going to be $40,000.’ That’s a new car! My premium is very high.”

The Swedish pop star is telling me about life in the United States from a back booth at Skin Contact, a nondescript natural wine bar on New York’s Lower East Side, after a day of promo for her upcoming album, Midnight Sun (out Sept. 26). Our hang might be the closest she gets to blowing off steam in the city this trip. “I didn’t do sh*t yesterday, which is kind of sad,” she says, before ordering a glass of organic white wine.

Larsson hasn’t taken a day off for herself in a while: It’s only been a year since she released her last album, Venus. “I want to release music, keep touring, release music, keep touring, not stop, and not be so in my head,” she says.

These days, she spends more time in the States than her home country, but on Midnight Sun, she’s taking us home with her. Sweden’s long summer days — when the sun doesn’t set until after midnight and rises again just a few hours later — inspired much of the album, including the clubby title track. “Not everyone gets to experience that, but those summer nights are how I grew up,” she says. “You go out, have a party in the forest, and at 3 a.m., it’s daytime. It’s an amazing, amazing feeling.”

Sweden, of course, has long been considered a pop music mecca thanks to powerhouses like Robyn, Max Martin, and — not least of all — ABBA. (Larsson cried seeing the group’s ABBA Voyage hologram show.) But growing up, she wasn’t motivated by her Swedish predecessors to follow in their footsteps. “My first concert was Céline Dion, Canada’s queen — I was just in awe,” she recalls. “I remember buying Whitney Houston’s CD with the cover shot by David LaChapelle, where she’s on this stepping stool with all of her plaques.”

Instead, she was inspired to become a pop star by watching the dance-heavy videos of Beyoncé, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears (whom she calls an honorary Swede due to her work with Martin). “I’ve always loved an international pop girl,” says Larsson, who’s dressed in a Y2K-inspired graffiti tank top and denim shorts. “I think it was because they were not Swedish, funny enough, that they felt big, like a superstar.”

She does, however, credit growing up just outside Stockholm with giving her the foundation to survive in the music industry, which she entered when she was barely double digits. “Being from Sweden, where it’s like, ‘No, you are just like everyone else,’ it’s very grounding having that background,” she says. “America is so individualistic. It’s all about yourself, your dream, your world, and not really community-based at all. There’s something inspiring in that. It wakes the competitiveness in me by being here.”

Larsson makes it no secret that she’s aiming for an old-fashioned pop culture takeover with Midnight Sun, especially after watching long-toiling artists like Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Charli XCX scale new heights in 2024. “Hearing Brat, I remember it was like 5 a.m.,” Larsson says. “I had taken my Vyvanse way too late, so I was still in the daze; I couldn’t go to sleep. I was just laying next to my boyfriend. I listened through it and had a spiritual experience. What a f*cking amazing album. It just felt so honest and so real.”

She roots for her fellow pop girls — she and Charli once joined Dua Lipa for an all-star showing of diva solidarity — but like any human with emotions, she’s also at times felt envious of her peers. “I have a song on the album called ‘The Ambition,’ which is basically about how you compare yourself and compete against other girls,” she says. “It’s the taboo feelings of ‘Why do I never feel like anything is enough?’”

Larsson has three songs in Spotify’s Billions Club —“Lush Life,” “Never Forget You” with MNEK, and “Symphony” with Clean Bandit — all from her 2017 international debut So Good. She’s hungry for more. “I really want to get back to that billion streams with a new song,” she admits.

But she thinks her biggest obstacle is often herself. “I had so much success early on. Then I waited four years to release my second album [2021’s Poster Girl] because I felt really pressured to do it big and make it commercially successful. I think I messed it up for myself because I was so in my head, when I probably made five albums’ worth of songs in those four years.”

Still, she stands by the project and its singles, and she’s right there with fans crying #JusticeForPosterGirl in the comments. “I love ‘Love Me Land.’ It didn’t do at all what I wanted it to do, and it’s sad for people that they didn’t get to hear it,” she says proudly. “I love the video. We did it in lockdown. It’s just me, but it’s f*cking sick. ‘All the Time’ also deserved better.”

For Midnight Sun, she went back to her roots — not just with her summertime inspiration, but with her “Never Forget You” duet partner MNEK, a longtime collaborator who executive produced the project. “My first ever recording session with other people was ‘Never Forget You.’ I was like, ‘Is it that easy to write songs? What the f*ck?’” she recalls. “He is incredible, and he brings out the most confident version of myself.”

You can hear it on lead single “Pretty Ugly,” a celebration of misbehaving and getting messy (literally, in the case of the video) that finds Larsson shouting “Hollaback Girl”-style chants at the top of her lungs. Other tracks explore the moral gray areas of dating. “One song is about falling in love with a friend's boyfriend, and one song is about having a crush while you’re in a relationship,” she reveals. “All those things came from conversations with friends.”

The other phase of Larsson’s plan for world domination? Opening for Tate McRae on the U.S. leg of her Miss Possessive Tour, where she’ll bring her choreo-heavy shows to arenas stateside for the first time in her career. “I think it’s about time,” she deadpans, before taking a sip of her wine. “It’s the perfect combination. They’re there for Tate — she has a lot of energy and dancing, so I think people will be very in tune with what I do.” Afterward, she’ll embark on her own tour across the United Kingdom and Europe, where she’s no stranger to arenas, before returning to the United States to play her largest headline shows to date. “That’s a great plan: Snatch them up and put them in my pocket, then hopefully they’ll all come and join me on my tour.”

But Larsson’s not feeling the pressure — she’s already got her biggest fan in herself. “I would love the No. 1, the Grammys,” she says as we finish up at the bar. “But if you release something that you are so proud of and feels true to yourself, that’s a success. And if it connects with people, then amazing. It’s definitely a flop if you release something your label is pushing on you or that you’re not really vibing with, but they’re like, ‘No, it’s a hot sound.’” With Midnight Sun, she won’t have that problem: “I will ride for this album.”