Zara Larsson’s Pop Career Had Stalled. But a Big Second Act Awaited.

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Zara Larsson’s Pop Career Had Stalled. But a Big Second Act Awaited.

The Swedish singer spent a decade toiling outside the spotlight. But a PinkPantheress remix, a rainbow-streaked dolphin and an ability to roll with the punches brought her back.

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Zara Larsson’s Pop Career Had Stalled. But a Big Second Act Awaited.

The Swedish singer spent a decade toiling outside the spotlight. But a PinkPantheress remix, a rainbow-streaked dolphin and an ability to roll with the punches brought her back.

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By

Olivia Horn

Visuals by

Caroline Tompkins

April 26, 2026

A bashful 11-year-old named Crystal had a question for Zara Larsson: “How did you become the perfect star?”

Onstage, the singer — Barbie-like in a neon-pink tube top and flowing blond extensions — giggled into her bedazzled mic while a small group of V.I.P. fans

aww

ed. They had assembled in the cavernous, gilded hall of the Brooklyn Paramount for an “intimate preshow hang” with Larsson, where she dutifully performed two acoustic songs and took questions.

Later that March evening, a swarm of tweens, teens and millennial gays in glitter descended on the theater for the second of Larsson’s 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.

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,

“Stateside + Zara Larsson”

— the fizzy remix of PinkPantheress’s “Stateside” that caught fire after the American gold medalist Alysa Liu

skated to it

at the Olympic exhibition gala — 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

to her 2015 song “Lush Life” had been going viral for months.

Image

Zara Larsson is releasing “Midnight Sun: Girls Trip,” a remix companion to her 2025 LP, in May.

She’s also promoting her latest album:

“Midnight Sun,”

a sexy, propulsive collection of maximalist dance-pop released in September. On May 1, Larsson will drop “Midnight Sun: Girls Trip,” 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’s guest list is one of Larsson’s “biggest accomplishments,” she said, because “it’s like getting co-signed” by her favorite artists and “the people that raised me.”

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