Proving themselves each other’s muses, Swedish power popstar Zara Larsson and British singer-songwriter-producer MNEK have maintained their musical forces for her latest LP, the euphoric Midnight Sun, a decade after they first struck electropop gold on their 2015 collaboration “Never Forget You”.
Their blend of EDM sonics and R&B sensibilities course through the veins of Larsson’s fifth album, which is largely inspired by the Euro-dance scene, the atmosphere of the Swedish summer, and the singer’s own penchant for blending introspective lyrics with bold, radio-ready pop production. It’s evident from the opening jersey club sound of titular track “Midnight Sun”, an energetic dance tune that immediately lets us know Zara isn’t playing around with her still wildly underappreciated vocals (if you haven’t heard the run she delivers when belting the title, just you wait), and only furthers on “Blue Moon”, a spiritual sequel of sorts that is built largely around its earworm chorus; “Shine on me, kiss me in the dark, tell me I look beautiful underneath the stars.”
The lushness is only momentary though, as the outro hears Zara state how she wants to get “Messy, like really messy,” which perfectly segues into the brash, almost-rave like “Pretty Ugly“, the disc’s first single that delivers enough of a jolt to let us know that the singer isn’t afraid to put both her confidence and sexuality front and centre. This mentality is felt through the garage-R&B mix of “Girl’s Girl”, which delights in its ironic title as it’s about the singer wanting someone else’s man, and the hit-in-waiting “Hot & Sexy“, which feels like the dirtier cousin to “Pretty Ugly”, a cocky, Brazilian funk cut that builds itself around reality star Tiffany Pollard’s viral Big Brother rant against Gemma Collins; knowing that Larsson has rearranged the order to “Beautiful, fly, hot and sexy” from the original only enhancing the song’s reclaim of power.
If there’s any song that truly captures the feeling of a European summer it’s, fittingly, “Eurosummer”, a rousing dance track built around a hypnotizing accordion instrumentation and Latin-inspired handclaps. As much as the beat and title lean into a carefree mindset, Larsson’s lyrics speaking on how she’ll be someone’s girl for two months, “You’ll tell your friends I’m too fun, naked and never sober, this feels like Euro summer,” lace a certain bittersweetness to proceedings. This skill to merge weightier lyrical content and contrasting sounds is felt further on the album’s back-end, with “The Ambition” presenting an aggressive beat with vulnerable lyrics about her ambition to be a star and feel a certain validation in that, and the closing “Puss Puss” which, understandably, is a more adult-minded song (though maybe not as one expects), but offsets its maturity with a sweet Y2K pop aesthetic.
Relentless in its ambition to deliver joyfully formulated pop, and be unapologetic in such, Midnight Sun is close to genre perfection and, if listeners had the right sense, they’d reward Larsson’s continued effort and ethic accordingly. Escapism, with a sense of reflection, pop appreciators should want to spend their time under this Midnight Sun.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Midnight Sun is available through Sony Music Australia from September 26th, 2025.
