Zara Larsson’s “Midnight Sun: Girls Trip” Ignites Eurosummer with Pop Perfection

“Said by 20, I’d be fillin’ up stadiums,” Zara Larsson sings on ‘Saturn’s Return’, a reflective gem from her fifth studio album, ‘Midnight Sun’. “Didn’t happen, so I changed the deadline.” This appealing blend of pluck and vulnerability ripples through Larsson’s dazzling dance-pop LP, which charted moderately in most territories when it dropped last September. Soon afterwards, though, the seasoned Swede began to gain cachet again after several years of semi-hits (2019’s ‘Don’t Worry Bout Me’, 2023’s ‘Can’t Tame Her’) and bops that should have been bigger (2019’s ‘All The Time’, 2020’s ‘Love Me Land’).

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By December, with the album’s euphoric title track picking up streaming heat and her decade-old banger ‘Lush Life’ back on the charts, Larsson felt confident enough to declare herself “out of the Khia asylum” . That she had the nous to reference pop stans’ favourite shorthand for cultural irrelevance and general floppery only underlined the way she had levelled up. Larsson has always had principles – she turned down a Eurovision performance in 2024 due to Israel’s involvement in the contest – but now her playful side was also coming across.

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Having been grafting since she was 10, when she won the Swedish talent show Talang , Larsson isn’t about to rest on her laurels now. Instead, she’s seeking to secure her revival with ‘Midnight Sun: Girls Trip’, a deluxe edition featuring a fresh remix of every track from the original. Each has a feature from a different female artist or two, which allows Larsson to show off her great taste and sisterly credentials.

This year, she turbo-charged her comeback by jumping on a remix of PinkPantheress ‘ drum ‘n’ bass hit ‘Stateside’, so it feels fitting now that PinkPantheress sings on and co-produces a remix of ‘Midnight Sun’, which accentuates the original’s breakbeats by adding a nostalgic sample from DJ Fresh’s 2008 club classic ‘Gold Dust’. But not every remix here is quite as inventive, or necessarily an improvement. Despite the addition of a siren-like synth riff and a sprightly Shakira , the new ‘Eurosummer’ lacks the kinetic thrill of the original.

However, most of the reimaginings on ‘Girls Trip’ are at least interesting. Tyla is suitably sultry on ‘Hot & Sexy’, while Robyn adds ribald lines to ‘Puss Puss’: “I can get you off in a whole ‘nother language.” Toronto-based DJ-producer Bambii helps to turn ‘The Ambition’, which now features vocals from Madison Beer , into an aromatic tropical house banger. And a swirling, six-minute version of ‘Saturn’s Return’ featuring its co-writer, Danish-Chinese artist Helena Gao, has elegant echoes of ‘Ray of Light’-era Madonna .

Coupled with the undimmed effervescence of the original album, ‘Midnight Sun: Girls Trip’ is a journey worth taking. And for Larsson, the doors to the “Khia asylum” are rapidly fading from sight in the rear-view mirror.

Details

- Record label: Sommer House / Epic

- Release date: May 1, 2026

The post Zara Larsson – ‘Midnight Sun: Girls Trip’ review: reinvigorated pop queen drives us into a red-hot Eurosummer appeared first on NME .

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