Release Date: 26 September 2025
Song Count: 10
Duration: 31 minutes, 58 seconds
Rating: 7.3/10
Description:
Dang, March really has been the month of pop stars for the project, eh? Well, that and black metal, I suppose.
Breaking out into the American music market after over a decade of having her commercial success mainly confined to the European continent is Zara Larsson, a singer from Sweden with several hits under her name and plenty of time and experience in the scene to cook something up. With the recent rise of her collaboration with PinkPantheress on the song "Stateside" finally achieving the charting numbers she has been striving for since her debut in the industry as a child, Larsson now has a big catalogue of music to cash in that has been gradually building up since the last time any of her songs became hits, and this includes the album release just preceding this new rise in public fame, Midnight Sun. Named after a phenomenon observed in regions of the world closer to the poles - such as the singer's own home country - where the sun refuses to fully set at a certain time of the year, the title of Midnight Sun, as well as the album's contents themselves, are meant to represent a night of strong emotions that never ends, in a more metaphorical sense.
Though it may be easy to chalk up the tracks in the album as merely repetitive radio pop on the surface, listening into it further and seeing what some of the lyricism has to say shines a light on the level of attention to detail that is easy to miss. Atop slickly produced rhythmic beats and melodies driven by electronic instruments, Larsson sings of struggles with ambition, interpersonal relationships and reflecting on her own nature as a person, framed in a way that is meant to resonate with many who lend an ear. Even with the metaphorical shiny coating around the music with its meticulous curation to appeal to as many tastes as possible, the album is far from devoid of personalised elements revolving around the star of the show; especially with tracks like "Pretty Ugly", "The Ambition" and "Saturn's Return", which are all songs with extremely different tones and energies surrounding them and yet all being connected by the singer as the central figure going through different experiences and emotions.
I shall admit that Zara Larsson has never been a mainstream music personality that has sparked much interest in me beyond her individual hits from years past up until this point - though this may be from the general phenomenon of her struggling to find a proper footing and a silver arrow of a song to shoot through the geographical barriers. Midnight Sun, as such, provides much insight into who she is as a person with its lyrical themes, along with containing big amounts of catchy music to listen to. So far, the recent surge in her popularity does not seem to have had too large of an impact on this record's success just yet; however, with some additional time, this is something that is more than possible to be changed - and it's hard to say that it would be undeserved, either. Not bad all around, and perhaps it is time for the general to pay attention to where else this woman is planning on musically going to next.