Zara Larsson Season is here — and it’s been ten years in the making.
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On this week’s Billboard Hot 100, the Swedish pop star lands three songs on the tally: “Stateside” (with PinkPantheress, No. 30), “Lush Life” (No. 36) and “Midnight Sun” (No. 69). That puts her just behind Olivia Dean (five) and right alongside Taylor Swift (three) as the female artist with the most concurrent hits on the Feb. 7 ranking.
After spending the better part of the last decade milling around pop’s C-list (as an artist with recognizable hits but a less-recognizable brand or aesthetic), Larsson has found herself on the heels of Swift, the world’s most commercially dominant artist, and Dean, who’s experiencing one of the biggest breakthrough eras of the decade. And like seemingly everything else in early 2026, it all ties back to the inescapable shadow of 2016.
The last time Zara earned three Hot 100 hits in a single calendar year was indeed 10 years ago, when she was still just 17. “Never Forget You,” a dance-pop duet with longtime collaborator MNEK, reached No. 13, while “Lush Life” hit No. 75 (its peak at the time) and “Ain’t My Fault” closed out the year at No. 76. It was a massive year for Larsson: TIME named her one of the 30 most influential teens of the year, and she opened for Beyoncé on the first Wembley Stadium stop of her historic Formation World Tour. Although she was making her first meaningful moves stateside, it must be underscored how much of an international pop force Zara already was at the time.
In 2008, she won Sweden’s adaptation of America’s Got Talent at age 10, giving way to her first top 10 hit in her home country, a cover of Céline Dion’s timeless “My Heart Will Go On.” Introducing, her debut EP, arrived four years later, spawning her first Swedish No. 1 hit, “Uncover.” By 2013, she signed with Epic, setting in motion her U.S. crossover odyssey, which reached a key inflection point with the release of “Lush Life” as the lead single from her international debut studio album, So Good, in 2015. (She exclusively released her formal debut album, 1, in Scandinavian countries the year prior.) To date, Zara is a four-time winner at the Grammis (Sweden’s equivalent to the Grammys) and four-time nominee at the Brits.
To put it plainly: she’s been a major deal and main pop girl across Europe for years, despite her late ‘10s releases failing to make much of an impact in the U.S. Nonetheless, her true Stateside breakthrough would take a little while longer — and needed some help from a very left-field meme.
In the dog days of summer 2024, “Symphony” — Zara’s 2017 collaboration with English electronic group Clean Bandit — found a new life on TikTok. Users started pairing part of Zara’s euphoric hook (“I just wanna be part of your symphony!”) with a dolphin and unicorn-filled Christian Riese Lassen painting called “Enjoy Sunshine.” This doesn’t seem remotely remarkable on its own, but that’s where Gen Z’s penchant for dark, ironic humor comes out to play. The joke behind the “Symphony” meme lies in the captions, where users delivered blunt emotional truths like “I have depression,” juxtaposing those sentiments against the song’s whimsical, string-laden dance beat. One could also argue the meme’s true roots are found in a real diary that used to play “Symphony” when opened; the product was sold a few years ago, and the song would start blaring when users wanted to read or write their darkest secrets.
By the end of August, Zara herself hopped on the trend, writing “What the f—k is happening” across those viral dolphins. Considering the viral trend brought “Symphony” to No. 1 on the now-defunct TikTok Billboard Top 50 and to nearly 715,000 videos on TikTok, that post, which has garnered over 75 million views to date, was a fair reaction. Like any great pop star, Larsson seized the moment, merging the Internet with real life by incorporating dolphin imagery into her “Symphony” performances on her 2024 Venus Tour. TikTok is always good for helping a song reach a new audience, but the artist behind that revived song being able to maintain the attention of that new audience — and convince them to buy into new music — is a much more difficult task.
To pull it off, Larsson reteamed with MNEK to craft her fifth studio album, Midnight Sun, which she launched in April 2025 with lead single “Pretty Ugly.” That song found its niche audience – as most Zara singles do — but it was the set’s second single (and title track) that helped her shift into a new gear. Anchored by a soaring, siren-esque riff in the hook preceded by a titillating, nearly breathless pre-chorus, “Midnight Sun” arrived on June 13, about three weeks before Zara began her well-timed stint as the opening act for Tate McRae’s arena-headlining Miss Possessive World Tour. The song’s official music video premiered about a week later, finding Zara reenvisioning the “Symphony” dolphin meme as the grounding aesthetic for her Midnight Sun era.
Featuring saturated summer hues, stunning glamour shots that feel like they were captured in the same universe as Windows’ grassy default wallpapers and an homage to ‘00s fashion (airbrushed, cropped tees and low-rise booty shorts), the “Midnight Sun” music video evoked the serotonin-boosting feeling of the original dolphin meme without feeling like a retread. Zara even connected the meme to her home country, which is one of the few places on Planet Earth where the sun remains visible at the local midnight hour during the summertime, resulting in a literal midnight sun. Notably, she also rode the meme into a collaboration with artist Lisa Frank, known for featuring rainbows and dolphins in her work, for a limited edition Midnight Sun CD package.
Zara included “Midnight Sun” on her Miss Possessive setlist, which also included previous hits like “Lush Life” and, of course, “Symphony.” On that tour, headliner Tate McRae established herself as one of the most consistent live performers of Top 40’s new class, but Zara proved no slacker herself: Whether she was nailing the “Pretty Ugly” choreography or bantering with an audience who may not be familiar with her, Zara was electric onstage. And very few moments from the overall show held a candle to her nailing the “Midnight Sun” pre-chorus as her dancers hoisted her into the air. Zara delivered one killer set after another through the end of September, setting the stage for one of the first viral lyrics from her rework of PinkPantheress’ “Stateside,” which arrived the following month on the British singer-producer’s Fancy Some More? remix album. “Who knew, opening up would make me a headline?/ Boots, that’s my ego boost,” Zara croons. “Schedule ain’t been loose for a minute/ Yeah, I’m that girl, I’ve been it!”
And well, where’s the lie? Tate certainly made her mark and collected her coin on tour, but Zara did indeed make more than a few headlines thanks to her knockout performances. Furthermore: 1) Zara has definitely been “that girl” and 2) her own headlining Midnight Sun Tour commenced just a month after her Miss Possessive stint concluded… so her schedule truly “ain’t been loose for a minute.”
Just seven stops into the Midnight Sun Tour (Nov. 7), Zara earned her first career Grammy nomination; “Midnight Sun” picked up a nod for best dance pop recording, a category previously won by Kylie Minogue (“Padam Padam”) and Charli XCX (“Von Dutch”). A crowning achievement that came almost exactly a decade after she dropped “Lush Life,” that recognition from the Recording Academy also proved the final catalyst for her 2026 Hot 100 return.
Just ten days later, at an Amsterdam tour stop (Nov. 12), Zara invited a fan named Julia to perform the “Lush Life” dance break with her onstage. That fun moment, which pulled from Zara’s 2025 tour choreography, set into motion a viral dance trend that helped the seemingly eternal hit return to the Hot 100 by the new year (Jan. 17). Soon enough, fellow pop stars like Alex Warren were joining her onstage for the inescapable dance. The same week “Lush” returned, “Stateside” entered the chart at No. 100, eventually vaulting into the top 30 within a month, thanks in large part to its eye-catching music video pouring even more gasoline on the song’s viral flame.
Directed by Charlotte Rutherford, the “Stateside” remix music video finds Zara and PinkPantheress trying on each other’s disparate, yet related aesthetics, bridging the former’s Y2K glam with the latter’s affinity for mid-late ‘00s plaid-dominant fashion. The clip garnered praise across the Internet, including Academy Award winner Halle Berry, who wrote on X, “They’re making Pop fun again. Go ladies.” PinkPantheress, of course, had a banner year of her own in 2024, hitting No. 4 on Dance Albums with Fancy That, earning a viral hit in “Illegal” and picking up two Grammy nods of her own. By linking with someone on their own culturally relevant run — who also plays with clearly Euro-coded ‘00s vibes — Zara leveraged the Top 40 network to her advantage, just as she did with Tate and her tour.
Zara revived an old smash and scored a current hit with a collaboration — but Hot 100 success still evaded Midnight Sun. But not for much longer: the same week she was announced as a performer at the 2026 Grammy Premiere Ceremony, “Midnight Sun” entered the Hot 100 at No. 82 after months of gradual streaming growth. Now, with social media fawning over her stripped-down rendition of the track, “Midnight” is expected to continue rising as Zara kicks off the American leg of her Midnight Sun Tour. Though she lost the Grammy on Sunday (Feb. 1), the entire Midnight Sun album will be eligible at the 2027 ceremony, which could very well be the proper stamp on the era that lifted Zara to a more exclusive club of Stateside top 40 phenoms. Roughly a decade after her initial Hot 100 breakthrough, Zara Larsson is back in the conversation in a much bigger way — just like Charli XCX, Hozier and Tinashe in 2024.
If Zara’s 2026 Hot 100 comeback confirms one thing, it’s that when artists combine the current rush of 2016 nostalgia with bulletproof pop bangers and Internet-minded marketing savvy, they can evolve into a truly unstoppable force — perhaps one even greater than what could have been imagined 10 years ago.