A bashful 11-year-old named Crystal had a question for Zara Larsson: \u201cHow did you become the perfect star?\u201d<\/p>\n
Onstage, the singer \u2014 Barbie-like in a neon-pink tube top and flowing blond extensions \u2014 giggled into her bedazzled mic while a small group of V.I.P. fans awwed. They had assembled in the cavernous, gilded hall of the Brooklyn Paramount for an \u201cintimate preshow hang\u201d with Larsson, where she dutifully performed two acoustic songs and took questions.<\/p>\n
Later that March evening, a swarm of tweens, teens and millennial gays in glitter descended on the theater for the second of Larsson\u2019s two concerts there, during which the singer, aided by four backup dancers and an overworked wind machine, treated them to 90 minutes of pop spectacle with arena-size ambitions.<\/p>\n
To the question at hand, Larsson offered an earnest answer about how people shine when they do things with purpose. Stardom is a topic on which she has recently gained some authority: That week, \u201cStateside + Zara Larsson\u201d<\/a> \u2014 the fizzy remix of PinkPantheress\u2019s \u201cStateside\u201d that caught fire after the American gold medalist Alysa Liu skated to it<\/a> at the Olympic exhibition gala \u2014 climbed to No. 6 on the Hot 100. In February, she attended the Grammys as a nominee for the first time. And on TikTok, concert clips of fans dancing onstage<\/a> to her 2015 song \u201cLush Life\u201d had been going viral for months.<\/p>\n She\u2019s also promoting her latest album: \u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d<\/a> a sexy, propulsive collection of maximalist dance-pop released in September. On May 1, Larsson will drop \u201cMidnight Sun: Girls Trip,\u201d a stack of remixes featuring pop titans like Shakira and Robyn as well as prominent peers like the R&B singer Kehlani and the City Girls rapper JT. The record\u2019s guest list is one of Larsson\u2019s \u201cbiggest accomplishments,\u201d she said, because \u201cit\u2019s like getting co-signed\u201d by her favorite artists and \u201cthe people that raised me.\u201d<\/p>\n Larsson, 28, is by now a music industry veteran. She won a reality TV talent competition in her native Sweden at age 10, signed a record deal at 14, released her debut album at 16 and scored an early hit, at 17, with \u201cNever Forget You,\u201d a pathos-laden EDM power ballad. But just a year ago, she was toiling in pop\u2019s lower-middle class<\/a>. The kind of attention she had attracted early in her career \u2014 and which is bubbling around her again now \u2014 seemed like a distant dream, both to her and to the online pop fanatics who, in their ruthless taxonomy of pop artists, often deemed her a \u201cflop.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn everything relating to my musical achievements, I rarely feel like \u2018Yay,\u2019\u201d Larsson said in a documentary<\/a> released last year. \u201cI mostly feel like \u2018What\u2019s this, this is terrible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d her fifth album, was a determined effort to course-correct. \u201cI stopped focusing so much on what I thought other people would want from me or what I thought radio would want, and just started focusing on what I wanted to do,\u201d she said during an interview in the lobby of her Downtown Brooklyn hotel. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just, ironically, when people start caring.\u201d<\/p>\n Fresh-faced and low-key in sweats and flip-flops, Larsson was chatty and unguarded about the challenges she had faced in the industry and the scale of her dreams \u2014 topics that surface on her album, too, where she has a writing credit on every track. On \u201cThe Ambition,\u201d<\/a> a rattling, percussive confessional, she lays out her predicament of being \u201craised on validation \/ consumed by aspiration.\u201d And \u201cSaturn\u2019s Return,\u201d<\/a> the upbeat record\u2019s only true ballad, contains this account of milestones missed: \u201cWhen I was 17, I didn\u2019t have no patience \/ Said by 20, I\u2019d be filling up stadiums.\u201d<\/p>\n She is particularly proud of \u201cSaturn\u2019s Return.\u201d For a singer who has not always been involved in the songwriting process, the candor and specificity of the lyrics feel fresh. Larsson attributes this to the trusting environment she cultivated with the close-knit group that worked on \u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d including her \u201cNever Forget You\u201d co-writer MNEK, along with newer faces like the producer Margo XS and the singer-songwriter Helena Gao.<\/p>\n Larsson has said<\/a> that she never again wants to be in a studio with only men; surrounding herself with primarily female and queer collaborators around her age satisfied \u201ca need and urge to feel understood without having to explain myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m able to bring her sassy side out,\u201d MNEK, reflecting on their relationship, said in a phone interview. \u201cThere\u2019s a trust there because I\u2019ve known sis for, like, 12 years. There\u2019s a clear camaraderie.\u201d<\/p>\n That camaraderie was painfully absent in some of the rooms in which Larsson found herself early in her career: She said she was often talked over and made uncomfortable by collaborators who would invite guests \u2014 and even strippers. \u201cWhen I turned 18, I felt like people were moving differently,\u201d she added, like they had been \u201cjust waiting, which is so creepy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt just feels so much better to create your own little crew, and not to feel like I have to chase, \u2018Oh, this person did this No. 1,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Margo XS, who performs as part of the raucous dance music duo deBasement, came aboard because Larsson was looking to go \u201ca bit more left of center\u201d with her sound, Margo said in a phone interview. To whet Larsson\u2019s appetite, she made her a wide-ranging playlist of electronic music, bouncing from the lush techno of Placid Angles to the U.K. garage of Sunship to the warped trip-hop of Arca\u2019s \u201cStretch 2\u201d project. Margo also brought on Gao, who is Chinese Danish and connected with Larsson over their Nordic heritage.<\/p>\n One of the foursome\u2019s first sessions in London began with Larsson talking about her summer home in Sweden. \u201cThat\u2019s when this idea of ethereal Scandinavian music started to emerge,\u201d Margo recalled. The session yielded the album\u2019s title track: a euphoric drum-and-bass song about the idyllic time of year when the northern Swedish countryside is in perpetual twilight.<\/p>\n At the Brooklyn Paramount, Larsson\u2019s fans looked like they had just returned from summer vacation: Many sported faux hibiscus flowers in their hair, or airbrushed T-shirts that looked like boardwalk souvenirs. (The singer wore one reading \u201cSun Kissed\u201d in the video for \u201cMidnight Sun.\u201d<\/a>) Larsson said that she had long dreamed of people being able to identifiably dress as her for Halloween. That goal feels more attainable now, given her album\u2019s bold visual aesthetic, straight out of Claire\u2019s circa 2005 \u2014 butterflies, plastic bangles, candy-colored eye shadow and all.<\/p>\n But perhaps the most potent symbol in Larsson\u2019s iconography is the dolphin, and not entirely by her own design. In 2024, Larsson caught a wave of attention from a widely circulated meme<\/a> featuring saccharine, rainbow-streaked images of dolphins paired with dissonant, depressive captions like \u201cI have social anxiety.\u201d The meme\u2019s soundtrack \u2014 \u201cSymphony,\u201d<\/a> a sunny 2017 song by the electro-pop group Clean Bandit, featuring Larsson\u2019s vocals \u2014 played up the irony. \u201cSymphony\u201d hit No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s TikTok Top 50 chart that August.<\/p>\n Larsson pointed out that her affinity for dolphins predates all of this \u2014 she has two inked on her right ankle, a friendship tattoo from when she was a teenager. Rather than distancing herself from the viral moment \u2014 or leaning too hard into it \u2014 Larsson simply \u201caccepted the dolphin into my universe,\u201d she said. She commissioned Lisa Frank, fairy godmother of \u201990s schoolgirls, whose kitschy, Technicolor designs were a clear inspiration for the dolphin imagery, to create a special-edition album cover<\/a> for \u201cMidnight Sun.\u201d (Still, Larsson denied that the meme was explicitly \u201con the mood board\u201d for \u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d citing references like Madonna\u2019s \u201cRay of Light\u201d and early 2000s internet aesthetics instead.)<\/p>\n In the era of TikTok, virtually any artist can become an internet phenomenon overnight. What matters more is whether they can sustain the momentum. Seasoned artists like Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter recently cracked into pop\u2019s mainstream after years just outside the spotlight, in each case with the help of a viral episode. Both singers had already accrued a wealth of experience recording, touring and promoting their music, giving them the necessary stamina to run with the attention once it came their way.<\/p>\n For Ezekiel Lewis, the chief executive of Epic Records, the difference between an artist who can\u2019t meet the moment and one who can boils down to \u201ctrack proposition\u201d versus \u201cartist proposition.\u201d Lewis, who began working with Larsson as her A&R in 2021, said in a phone interview that the singer has long shown strength in the first category, as evidenced by the renewed popularity of older songs like \u201cLush Life\u201d and \u201cSymphony.\u201d But it took more time for her to develop a compelling artist proposition \u2014 to see the \u201cbuildup of a magnetic field around her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It also took a bit of shamelessness. MNEK noted that another artist in her shoes might have hesitated to take a supporting slot on a younger, less experienced artist\u2019s tour, as Larsson did last year when she opened for Tate McRae. But Larsson wasn\u2019t going to pass up the opportunity to play Madison Square Garden for the sake of pride. She is an unabashed self-promoter and a prolific poster; one representative TikTok from her time in New York featured her twerking to a \u201cMidnight Sun\u201d remix inside a bodega.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if I couldn\u2019t sing, I would probably be more successful as an influencer,\u201d she joked. \u201cNothing is embarrassing for me,\u201d she added. \u201cIf something is cringey, I\u2019m like, \u2018That\u2019s iconic.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Larsson\u2019s warmth and lack of inhibition is a draw for fans and colleagues alike. \u201cIt\u2019s very refreshing being around a pop star that is OK with not being perfect,\u201d the South African singer Tyla, a guest on \u201cGirls Trip,\u201d wrote in an email. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t try to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Or as Larsson put it on \u201cSaturn\u2019s Return\u201d: \u201cIt feels so good to know I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing.\u201d That lyric lands differently now, in light of her recent successes. The \u201cSaturn\u2019s Return\u201d remix on \u201cGirls Trip\u201d is stretched across six mystical minutes, with new guest vocals from Gao and a tonal shift from contented acceptance to something more like triumph. The line from the original version about filling up stadiums by age 20 is missing, as is the more equanimous couplet that followed it: \u201cDidn\u2019t happen so I changed the deadline \/ Might take another 20 years, that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Larsson never wanted to wait 20 more years \u2014 and, seemingly, she won\u2019t have to. In the caption of an Instagram dump<\/a> recapping her second night in New York, the singer previewed a long-awaited milestone: \u201cRight before the show I had a meeting with my agents to see what date we can book Madison square garden for\u2026\u201d she wrote. \u201cLife is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n