Before Zara Larsson released Midnight Sun in late September of 2025, it seemed she was the only one with unwavering confidence in her ability to transcend into a “main pop girl.” Granted, there were many people in the audience at Tate McRae’s Miss Possessive Tour (during which Larsson served as the opening act for the August and September ‘25 leg) who were wondering, at times, why Larsson wasn’t headlining her own tour. That kind of thinking arrived at the perfect moment for the Swedish songstress to release her fifth album. Though, to many, it would feel as if it was her first. For, like Charli XCX breaking fully into the mainstream with 2024’s Brat, Larsson did the same with Midnight Sun.
And it all truly began with releasing the title track as her second single (her first, “Pretty Ugly,” didn’t quite make its mark the same way), which came with a video that borrowed heavily from 00s aesthetics, but especially Madonna’s 2004 “Love Profusion” (directed by, unexpectedly enough, Luc Besson). It was with this aughts-centric visual (with more than a dash of influence from both Paris Hilton and Lisa Frank) that Larsson established what the world of Midnight Sun would truly look and feel like.
And, in essence, that look and feel was meant to transport the listener to a blissful island vacation where all of one’s cares could just “melt away.” Granted, Larsson’s geographical inspiration for the record wasn’t an island, but her native land of Sweden. As such, Larsson commented of the recording process, “I really am proud of my Swedish pop heritage, so I wanted to write about a Swedish summer where the sun never goes down. I wanted the whole album to feel like it’s a summer night and it never ends. And it doesn’t matter if it’s December: the summer night will be there for you. It’s waiting for you, it will come back for you, and you will come back for it.” As one has done just that for the Girls Trip edition of the album, which amounts to what Larsson has herself attributed to being inspired by what Charli XCX did with Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. A “blueprint” that’s in keeping with how Larsson’s own “mainstream blowup” with this particular album somewhat followed the Brat trajectory.
And part of what also helped launch Larsson even more firmly into the spotlight was her collaboration with PinkPantheress on a remix of “Stateside” (for PinkPantheress also pulled a Charli XCX with Fancy Some More?, a remix album version of her EP, Fancy That). A single that, upon being released at the beginning of 2026, managed to enter the top ten of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart (perhaps to Larsson and “Pink’s” surprise alike). This chart favor also assisted by a video that, as some described, merely served as a showcase of their different aesthetics. As for Larsson’s “00s fun in the sun” one, this time around, she went straight to the reference source by getting Paris Hilton to say some dialogue on a trailer for the album that’s set up to be a phone call between the two of them.
As Larsson informs Hilton of all the girls (a.k.a. features) she’s bringing along for her visit (a.k.a. Girls Trip) with the heiress, Hilton is allowed the chance to parrot her usual catch phrases of “loves it,” “sliving,” “iconic” and “that’s hot.” Though perhaps Hilton herself wasn’t “iconic” or “hot” enough to be included as an actual musical feature (even though her most “serious credential,” “Stars Are Blind,” ought to have put her in the running). Whatever the case, she was still content enough to lend her 00s sensibilities to the throwback trailer, setting the stage for the “fun fest.” One that commences with PinkPantheress on “Midnight Sun,” as if Larsson immediately wanted to pay back the favor of “Stateside.”
To do so, she not only pays homage to PinkPantheress’ Britishness with the “Midnight Sun (Girls Trip)” visualizer—which showcases Larsson sitting on the back of a pink convertible with the backdrop of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben behind her—but also gives PinkP plenty of vocal time (not to mention a co-producer credit) to deliver one of her signature dreamy/honorary stoner verses. Because, yes, PinkPantheress has made no secret about her and weed not going well together, even though she has “that vibe” of being a smoker. One she caters to when she builds on Larsson’s original lyrics with, “There’s no darkness when you can still feel the light (feeling so high)/And I’m on something tonight, so I’m feeling so high [see, the drug-addled innuendo]/I’ve traveled here and I’ve traveled there/I took a flight, I’m in Delaware/Someone told me ‘bout Mexico City/On the beach and they’re staring at me/Get me further to Paraguay/Tell me what you might do tonight/Suddenly, a midnight sun has entered my eyes.” And goes from her eyes to our ears, with a remixed backbeat that makes “Midnight Sun” sound as ideal for a club setting as it does for a high-speed chase on someone’s speedboat in the Mediterranean.
However, Larsson quickly switches gears (no boat pun intended) with slower-tempo’d version of “Blue Moon,” which now features Kehlani on it. Accordingly, the slow jam vibe of this iteration caters to Kehlani’s R&B stylings, with Larsson gamely proving that her own vocals fit right in with that genre as well. But it’s all about Kehlani building on Larsson’s love letter to her longtime boyfriend, Lamin Holmén, weaving in new lyrics that praise, “I like that you can hold onto me closely/When no one else can see me, wanna try?/And everything I think nobody notices/Seems to be so easy for you, right?” There’s something about it that’s particularly 90s R&B-sounding (even though it’s the same trio of producers, Margo XS, MNEK and Zhone, who have provided the beat)—with just a hint of Craig David—further amplified by Kehlani’s ultra sexual-romantic lines. Which also include, “There’s something that I wanna do, something that I’m going through/Something that I only have planned for you and I, boo/‘Cause everyone just disappears right as I’m with you.”
That thematic and sonic flow is once again abruptly interrupted by “Pretty Ugly,” which, of course, JT is perfect for as an additional feature (along with Margo XS, who doesn’t just get a producer credit on this). After all, she has the level of braggadocio necessary to convey the sentiments behind Larsson’s original chorus, which demands, “Have you ever seen a pretty girl get ugly like this?/Messy like this?/Losin’ her shit.” JT’s cutoff answer to that opening question is, “Center of attention while you hoes male-centered (ew)/I kill a nigga then go out to dinner/Me and my bitches twin savages, sinner/He know not to play ‘cause he fuckin’ with a winner/I get the fuck on, I ain’t got Stockholm [a well-played nod to Larsson’s Swedishness]/Out in Sweden with Zara, bitch, Stockholm [yes, she rhymed Stockholm with Stockholm, but it’s fine since it was to emphasize its two different meanings]/Rap bitch, but I live like a pop song/On the beach, blonde hair, bitch, Thong Song [probably the biggest shoutout in a song—at least in recent memory—to Sisqó’s 2000 hit].”
JT isn’t done with flexing just yet, adding in one more warning to any man that tries to trifle with her when she raps, “Boy, you better know your place/When I crash out, it come with mace/I’m way too pretty to get ugly/I’d rather take your card and go straight to the bank.” Soon after, Margo XS makes it apparent that she earned that feature credit during the totally berserk musical breakdown of the track that occurs at around the one-minute-forty-second mark (with Larsson saying, “Like this” in a way similar to Britney Spears saying, “Like that” on “I’m a Slave 4 U”). And doesn’t let up until the end.
The sonic motif of Margo XS’ apeshit sound remains consistent on “Girl’s Girl,” which now features Emilia. Who is kind of like Larsson’s version of Charli having BB Trickz on the “Club Classics” remix. You know, checking that “Spanish flavor” box. To that point, at around the one-minute-nineteen-second mark, the beat turns into something especially reminiscent of a Brat track. And it isn’t long after the beat shift that Emilia chimes in, “Critican lo que haga, lo que piensa y lo que diga/Un movimiento en falso y todos esperan la caída/Pero si fuera un hombre, en dos días lo olvidan/Otra bala que gasto desmintiendo una mentira/Dicen que hay espacio, pero solo hay una silla/Si cumplo mi sueño, puedo ser su pesadilla” (in English: “They criticize everything I do, everything I think, everything I say/One wrong move and everyone’s waiting for me to fall/But if I were a man, they’d forget me in two days/Another bullet I waste debunking a lie/They say there’s room, but there’s only one chair/If I achieve my dream, I can be their nightmare”).
Emilia then pivots to English with the lines, “Wow! I want it and I take it like eenie-meenie-mo/I’m on my side of the world” before concluding with, “Siempre estamos en el” (“We’re always in the”). Larsson finishing that sentence with, “Spotlight, honey/Fame and money/Why we always gotta be cute and friendly?”
Here it bears noting that the original theme of “Girl’s Girl” has been changed to reflect a woman competing for the spotlight rather than for the affections of a friend’s boo. And yes, the lyrics of the OG version were inspired by an event that really happened to Larsson when she was a teenager, getting recorded on camera kissing a friend’s boyfriend (as she told Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy). But, now that Larsson is a bigger star than she’s ever been, it makes sense for her to change tack and instead focus on competing for “pop star supremacy” as she sings, “I wanna be your girl’s girl, but what happens when a girl’s girl/Wants the spotlight, honey?/One and only/There’s room for everyone, but is there really?” According to Britney Spears, who once said, “There’s room for all of us,” the answer is yes.
Larsson, too, technically feels the same, advocating for women working together (hence, Girls Trip), also mentioning on Call Her Daddy that she loves all the pop girls and that pitting women against each other is a product of the ongoing “nature of how people speak about girls in pop…” A.k.a. misogyny. But Larsson cosplays that angle for the purposes of this reimagined version of “Girl’s Girl” (which is also a rumination of fame in a similar way that the Charli remix of “Sympathy is a knife” with Ariana Grande is).
As the song comes to an end, Larsson also seems to give another slight nod to a Brat song (i.e., “Girl, so confusing”) when she sings, “I love all the girls/Do you wanna be that girl? Girl, girl.” The reply to that query from Eli, the next featured artist on “Crush” is an emphatic yes. And, like Emilia (who just so happens to also wield a mononym that starts with an “E”), Eli is yet another example of the fresh talent Larsson is spotlighting with this version of the album. Which is not only similar to what Charli XCX did on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat (with BB Trickz and Bladee being examples of “lesser known” artists to the average listener that XCX hand-picked as features), but also on her mixtapes, Number 1 Angel and Pop 2. What’s more, Larsson continues to show her allyship toward the trans community with both Margo XS and Eli’s presence on this record.
Compared to some of the other songs, “Crush” remains largely the same as it sounds on Midnight Sun, but there’s a change-up on the producer rotation that perhaps gives in a slightly more, let’s say, Des’ree-oriented feel. And Eli is also given ample license to play with their verses, including a very 00s-inspired moment where they have a pretend phone conversation that goes, “Zara.” “Eli.” “Are you there?” “Yes, hello, what’s wrong?” Just—I can’t see anything. Where are we?” “We’re in the song!” It’s all very cute, along with Eli shyly asking Larsson out on a date at the end, knowing full well the result is going to be, “Oh, baby, I’m crushed.”
By track six, Larsson decides it’s finally time to really pull one of the real big guns out. And since “Eurosummer” is one of the best songs on the album, it not only makes sense that little would change about its sound and structure, but also that she would keep it “set aside” for Shakira. A woman who, although South American (with Lebanese and Spanish roots), has spent enough time in Europe (complete with living in Spain long enough to cause a tax evasion scandal) to merit being on this particular ode to that carefree, blissed-out feeling that only a summer spent in Europe knows how to evoke. Except, unless, you happen to be Shakira dealing with discovering the Spanish government out to get you for tax fraud during “Eurosummer” 2021 and then you find out that your partner (since the two never got married), Gerard Piqué, was cheating on you and you have to announce your breakup right at the start of “Eurosummer” 2022.
So it is that Shakira makes allusions to both dramatic scenarios with her verse, “Last time I came, clearly/Thing turned out odd, briefly/But now I’m back, crazy/And if you’re down, baby/Let’s make a mess, maybe/Never look back/La disco/La playa/La brisa/La noche/Amalfi/Ibiza/You tell me I’m open.” In other words, she’s moved on from the trauma and is ready to reembrace Europe as the place to be from May to September (and, honestly, every other month of the year). So ready, in fact, that she brings on the sexual innuendo with, “You’re dying to have me/I got the drip that makes you drown/And you’ll be coming before I touch down.” A big promise indeed, but if anyone can deliver on it, it’s probably Shakira.
Building on the “breezy” vibe of “Eurosummer” is “Hot & Sexy,” which Larsson chose Tyla to collaborate with on. This after Tyla herself freshly released her own single featuring Larsson, “She Did It Again” (marking similar “quid pro quo” collab situation as what happened with PinkPantheress and Larsson). Still sampling a Tiffany Pollard sound bite as the crux of the chorus (“Beautiful, fly, hot and sexy”), this remix of the song is perhaps most unique because it marks the most seamless blending of voices. But that doesn’t mean Tyla doesn’t still get her own standout verse like the previous features. Coming in at the one-minute-forty-one-second mark, Tyla ramps up the “sass factor” by singing, “I might try it, sweet/Hair, check, nails, check, come with me, hop in/Might show you, got a nice little Benz/Beep, beep, that’s my evil twin/She bad and I’m bad, I’m runnin’ up tabs/She runnin’ up bags, I’m feelin’ my (uh)/All eyes on me, cinema/Pressure from the front, pressure from the back, yeah, yeah/That’s my Barbie girl, Barbie goin’ back, yeah, yeah/First, I did it, then they bit it, all my girls are sittin’ pretty/Girls are sittin’ pretty.”
Elsewhere in the song, Larsson is sure to play up her 00s connection for this era by singing, “You gon’ need TMZ for T and Z, scandalous/No, I don’t think they can handle us. Despite these lyrical additions, like “Eurosummer,” “Hot & Sexy” maintains the same sounds as the original. Not like “The Ambition,” which gets a complete lyrical and sonic retooling, with Madison Beer assisting with the former and Bambii with the latter, as both offer their services to help highlight Larsson’s newfound perspective on fame (one that has greatly shifted in the short amount of time since her global recognition). And of course Beer offers a characteristically personal verse in the form of recalling, “Yeah/Since I was thirteen/I felt their eyes all on me/I used to have some real big dreams for a little girl/Now when I hit the stage I still think of her/And I know validation is a high/Don’t need all this to survive/Act like I don’t give a fuck/I still crave your love.”
The notion of never being satisfied/always wanting more even after getting what you thought you wanted is something that Larsson can now speak on more succinctly, opening the revamped version of the song with the admission, “Still not satisfied/It blesses and cursed my life/A worldwide number one/Want another one/Yesterday’s price suddenly not today’s/Only keep the bills, don’t need the change/Backdrop to my life looking different/But I’m still the same, I’m still the same/And I need some more/‘Cause if I got it, I’m bored.” Thus, to curb that boredom, Larsson chose to reinvent Midnight Sun in a way that made it “star-studded,” ergo worthier of Larsson’s own newfound status. Not only that, but it speaks to her recent bout of interviews, as well as her acceptance speech for the Breakthrough award at the Billboard Women in Music ceremony, telling everyone that she feels at her best, safest and most creative when she’s collaborating with other women. And Girls Trip certainly backs up that sentiment.
Alas, all good things must come to an end, and as the album winds down with “Saturn’s Return,” a song that becomes even more ethereal and meditative with Malibu and Helena Gao’s contributions. Indeed, it was Gao who already co-wrote most of the songs on Midnight Sun, so she has no problem making some more lyrical benefactions, enhancing the theme of this new version of the track with the verse, “Like a parachute, I’m about to jump/I just fall, fall, fall/My heartbeat pounding like a drum/But I ain’t afraid no more/Thе more I experiеnce, the more mysterious it gets/Better let it unfold/‘Cause I’m not young enough to know it all” (a line that throws some cutting shade at youths and their inherent sense of arrogance). Gao even contributes an outro in Chinese—one that emphasizes making peace with taking comfort in the “not knowing” of it all as she assures, “Life cannot be planned. I used to find this very sad. No one chooses to be born. But if you believe that fate will protect you, you’ll discover how lucky you are to be alive.”
Larsson has definitely made that discovery repeatedly in the months since Midnight Sun was released. With her latest bout of luck being to secure the mother of all Swedish pop stars, Robyn, on her new version of “Puss Puss.” And, naturally, she saved Robyn for the big finish. After all, Robyn is part of the reason Larsson told Billboard of the “deluxe” version (though that feels like a misleading thing to call it in lieu of what it is: a “remix” album), “I think this is gonna be motherquake times a million.” A promise more than delivered even before Robyn announces herself with, “Tja, Det är Robyn.”
And after Robyn eases into her vocal harmonizing with Larsson, she owns her solo portion, proving that she’s the most “sexistential” of them all by urging, “So tell me what you really need/Cool with all your indecencies/I deliver the Swedish dream/Natural and sexistentially free [a nod, of course, to her latest album, Sexistential]/It’s like a candy rush/Oh baby, I know how to get you off in a whole ‘nother language, oh/I can teach you anything you want/Säg vad du vill ha/Älskling, vad vill du göra med mig?/You’re making fun of my accent, got me saying random things/Anything to get you undressed/Counting days and sending dirty texts/En, två, tre, fyr, fem, sex [yes, the Swedish word for “six” is “sex”]/Talk to me, tell me what you wanna do to me [this echoing the lyrics to ‘Talk to Me’].”
Well, if Larsson were to answer that question, she’d tell Robyn what she wants to “do” to her is laud and applaud her as one of the tour de force features on this updated iteration of Midnight Sun that very much channels what XCX did with the aforementioned Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. But Larsson makes the structure of that format entirely her own. Complete with the timing of the release, which is designed to make it a Girls Trip summer. For where Larsson had previously timed the release of Midnight Sun for what was practically the fall (at the end of September), she trots out this edition just in time for it to be everyone’s summer playlist. Well, everyone who’s a girl or a gay (and sure, it could also honorarily be called Gays Trip).
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