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From album
Midnight Sun
Zara Larsson · 2025 · Track 3
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The story behind
“Pretty Ugly” sounds like a scream in the middle of a 90s club: the bass hits hard, the synthesizers sound like old tape, and Zara Larsson's voice overflows in a chorus that seems to come from a broken speaker. The song doesn’t ask for permission to exist; it demands it. It’s not a polished or elegant track, but a handful of raw energy where what’s “ugly”—the disorder, the rebellion, the chaos—becomes its best weapon. The chorus, with its “Fuck the ladylike, more like crazy-like,” doesn’t just break with convention; it kicks it aside without hesitation. It’s as if Larsson had taken a mirror and smashed it on the floor, revealing fragments of an uncomfortable truth: perfection is just another cage.
They recorded it at Muzo Studios in Stockholm, in a session that started as an improvisation game. Larsson, Helena Gao, MNEK, and Margo XS sat down to talk, to laugh, to let words flow without filters. From those conversations came lyrics that feel like they were pulled from a three-a.m. chat: messy, honest, full of that spark that only emerges when no one’s counting every syllable. The result was a song that doesn’t sound like a product, but like something alive. Engineer Kaelen Russell and mixer Tom Norris gave it that dirty yet precise air, as if the track had been recorded in a basement with borrowed gear. There’s no polish here; there’s urgency. And it shows in every note.