When it came time to make her fourth international studio album, Midnight Sun, Swedish pop sensation Zara Larsson had her first choice of collaborators on speed dial. “I knew it had to be MNEK,” she says of her “Never Forget You” duet partner and friend. “I knew it was time to get him back. I love him. We always do the best things together, we've been working throughout my whole career, and every time we're in the studio, it's a banger. I just love what he brings out of me.”

Once the British songwriter and producer said yes, Zara put together the rest of her team—up-and-coming producer Margo XS and songwriter Helena Gao—and the core four got to work. On day one, they made “Midnight Sun” and lead single “Pretty Ugly”; looking around at each other, Zara says, they realized there was magic in the room. They felt an energy that connected them, emboldening her to be open, vulnerable, raw, and real in her lyrics, her vocal delivery, and the ambition which she felt safe to express in the songs they were creating. “It’s almost like we all completed each other,” Zara says. “We shared tastes and styles and references and stories—it’s like I never had to explain myself when we were having conversations about what these songs could be. This close-knit group…I love to work like that, with people who understand me and vice versa.”

Midnight Sun ripples with that same confidence and trust. Its storytelling bursts with truth and vulnerability, plumbing the depth and growth of Zara’s artistry and journey over nearly 20 years in the public eye. It’s an album unafraid to show all sides of the 27-year-old: lovestruck, wistful, ambitious, cocky, flippant, and uncertain, often in the same breath.

Midnight Sun follows Zara’s first three albums (2017’s So Good, 2021’s Poster Girl, and last year’s VENUS), building upon her legacy while taking things back to her roots. “Making this album brought me back to the very beginning, my first EPs when I started making music, because it was all about having fun and just creating and speaking honestly,” she says. “I really felt no pressure. I think that made things not only feel more fun for me, but the songs feel more authentic, too. The people who will love this album will love a very true part of me, something that I am very proud of and excited about.”

With “Midnight Sun” being the first completed song, Zara knew right away it also encompassed the holistic story she wanted to tell on the album. “In thinking about this album, I thought, ‘What do I want to say? What do I want this to be?’ I really am proud of my Swedish pop heritage, so I wanted to write about a Swedish summer where the sun never goes down,” she says. “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 and it will come back for you, and you will come back for it.

To follow “Midnight Sun” in the same session with lead single “Pretty Ugly,” she admits with a laugh, “is maybe the craziest day of songwriting I’ve ever done. I remember sitting there and just saying, ‘Let’s write a song about going insane.’ And it just felt like it was already sitting there in front of us, this block of ice that just needed sculpting. And I really just wanted to scream—so I did. We went back in the next day after hearing Margo’s production to make the verses live up to how fire the song sounded, but what you hear today is what we sent off to be mixed that day because we knew then it was a smash.”

On “Saturn’s Return,” the last song finished for Midnight Sun, Zara goes deep on the changes in her life that turning 27 illuminated. “I used to be so certain about every single thing growing up,” she says. “And I used to love that about myself, having the answer to everything. But the older I get, the less I know, the less certain I am. It feels so good. And it's fine to sway a bit in the wind because I know who I am in my core deep down. But I have allowed myself to open up and view the world from other people's perspectives, to be more understanding, to be more compassionate, to be more empathetic. Like I say in the last verse, I had so much pressure and a lot of big goals when I was really young—I was way more stressed then than I am now. I was disappointed when I didn’t get the things I thought I’d achieve. But then that's followed by acceptance and a new burst of inspiration and rediscovery. For me, this song is about stepping into a new era in my life.”

A bookend to “Saturn’s Return,” “The Ambition” leaves no stone unturned when it comes to goals, dreams, and the perception of competition encouraged by social media. “Being born as someone who is ambitious and someone who never wants to do something half ass, I’ve always wanted to be number one. Like, why would I be second when I can be first? But that’s setting yourself up for failure because how I viewed my whole life is that if I win, I'm not really that happy because it's expected. But if I don't win, then the world is falling down upon me. So I never really get to experience true joy in being so ambitious. It can always feel a little bit like: what’s next? I think that is the duality of who I am as an artist.”

Other highlights like “Girl’s Girl” might remind longtime Zara fans of “Ain’t My Fault,” dialed up to 11. And “Crush” is the album’s “pop banger,” a roller-coaster of emotions recalling the joy of having feelings you know you’ll (probably) never act on. She calls “Blue Moon” a “straight-up pure love song about my boyfriend” written during a writer’s retreat to Jamaica which Zara’s partner joined her for. “Hot and Sexy” is a “Frankenstein-ed, three songs-in-one” Brazilian funk banger co-produced by Zhone about hitting the town with your friends and the importance of leaving women unbothered. “It’s a bop, but there’s also that message at the end: can’t we just live our lives? Can’t a woman just be beautiful, fly, hot, and sexy? Let her do what she wants!”

“Throughout Midnight Sun,” Zara says, “I get to just capture that total Scandinavian vibe, which is something that I have grown up with—it's a huge part of me, my happiest memories and my saddest ones, too. A part of my soul is a Swedish summer night. This record encompasses that, how life is so beautiful it makes you cry.”

“But it just feels like me—knowing myself, this album is just really, really me. And also,” she says with a grin, “No one can do me the way I can.”