A singer pop achieved success ten years ago with dance hits and influences from music electronic and now returns to the charts with the same sound that took her to stardom. This is the trajectory of Swedish Zara Larsson, 28 years old, who has already had song turned into meme and even the makeup associated with it became trend at Carnival this year.
Data from Google Trends shows that interest in the singer began to grow in mid-2016, around the world, when she went viral with “Ain’t My Fault”, and has increased again now, after the release of her most recent album, “Midnight Sun”.
The singer also has 3 songs among Billboard’s 100 most listened to songs. In this order, “Stateside” appears, with PinkPantheress —which is also among the most played tracks at the moment on Spotify on a global scale—, “Lush Life” and “Midnight Sun”.
According to Billboard, the last time Larsson had three hits on the Hot 100 in the same year was ten years ago.
Part of that new momentum came from “Stateside,” which gained more interest after Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu performed to the song at the Winter Olympics screening gala.
The good moment highlights a trajectory that began early. Larsson began his career in 2008, at the age of 10, by winning the Swedish version of “America’s Got Talent”. From then on, he gained prominence and, two years later, he released his first EP, “Uncover”.
But the big leap came with the second album, “So Good”, from 2017, which brought together his first big hits, including “Lush Life”, still one of his most popular songs today and with more than 2 billion plays on Spotify.
The track returned to the charts recently after the singer started inviting fans to the stage, during shows on her current tour, to dance to the hit. One video of one of these presentations has already surpassed 40 million views in the TikTok.
Another turning point in his career came in the same period with “Symphony”, a partnership with Clean Bandit. The track became successful again in September 2024, when it returned to the charts, driven by a trend on TikTok.
At the time, videos with vibrant and colorful images, accompanied by jumping dolphins or unicorns, brought messages that were both melancholic and good-humored to the sound of music.
Larsson recognized the trend and incorporated dolphin visuals into live performances of “Symphony.” She reproduced the meme, for example, at her show at Rock in Rio, in Brazil, in September 2024.
After the hits of 2017, the singer released other albums, but none of them repeated the performance of the singles that promoted her. With the fifth album, however, Larsson returned to the spotlight. Driven by the good repercussion of “Midnight Sun”, she announced a deluxe edition of the work, marked by a tropical aesthetic and dance pop tracks.
In Brazil, this return was also reflected outside music platforms. Videos and photos of looks from the “Midnight Sun” tour became a trend during Carnival, with vibrant colors, marked blush and shiny rhinestones, in a Y2K aesthetic — a reference from generation Z to the 2000s. In Brazil, the main searches related to the singer are for “Zara Larsson makeup” and “make Zara Larsson”.
This year, the singer received her first Grammy nomination, in the category of best pop dance recording, with “Midnight Sun”, but lost to “Abracadabra”, by Lady Gaga. Now she is touring her latest album across North America.
