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    Zara Larsson tells The Guardian she doesn't want to play “the chart game”: “No one’s looking at the charts but industry people and maybe Taylor Swift fans.”
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    Zara Larsson tells The Guardian she doesn’t want to play “the chart game”: “No one’s looking at the charts but industry people and maybe Taylor Swift fans.”


    Zara Larsson tells The Guardian she doesn’t want to play “the chart game”: “No one’s looking at the charts but industry people and maybe Taylor Swift fans.”

    Posted by Ximiso

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    42 Comments

    3. neoncolour on

      I think the chart discussions have devolved into internet Stan rot. We’re listening to early Gaga and Britney music completely oblivious and ignorant of their chart metrics, because the music is still good and made a mark on the culture. Chart positions are supposed to be a descriptive metric, not a prescriptive one.

    4. Carolina_Blues on

      Then why was she screaming and crying on TikTok last week about her song going number 1 only to turn around and play the nonchalant act?

      Edited to add: also she released like 7 versions of midnight sun, which again is fine, but obviously you also care girl

    5. Media-consumer101 on

      Love this attitude. I’m a big Swiftie but chart obsession is really strange in big fandoms. Because it really doesn’t matter once you’re an established artist.

      The only time charts are somewhat helpful is when it’s a smaller or lesser known artist, who is getting exposure to a new audience through charting somewhere in the top 50 or top 10 or anything like that.

      Artists should be allowed to focus on making the art they want to make without worrying about what would appeal to the most people. That just gets you boring music (and industry people shouldn’t be encouraging that!!).

    7. nothingeverhappens91 on

      She’s right. Google the billboard top 40. On any given week seven out of the top ten are straight up doggy do do. Do you really want to model your career after Alex Warren, Morgan Wallen, & Sombr?

    8. No-Figure-8279 on

      Correction people on stan twitter care about charts but the average person does not.

    9. Glaucomflecken90210 on

      This would make more sense if she wasn’t out here also dropping remixes and celebrating leaving the khia asylum and talking about how she wanted stateside to be number one…. it comes off so fake when artists do this lol it’s ok to want success i promise

    12. Lavender_rain_2000 on

      I hate how every second artist needs to drop Taylor’s name in an interview unprovoked to make some type of point of how they are “different” . No one can be normal about a woman being very successful.

      Also Zara is being very disingenuous.
      She actively pushed Lush Life (an old song) on her tiktok saying how amazing it would be for it to get number 1, made many versions of it and attached midnight sun to it on spotify (and also said she want that one to get to number 1) , she celebrated chart success of her feature song and said it was her dream having a top 10 song, previously in interviews she said she wants to be number 1 and she even has a song about it.

      She used to be honest about wanting chart success which I appreciated a lot more.

    13. Safe-Reason1435 on

      I get that I’m probably reading into a very low stakes, innocuous comment, and to be clear I really like Zara Larsson but I really wish celebrities would move away from this “too cool to care” narrative.

      It’s okay to care! It’s okay to try hard! It’s okay to play by the rules that your particular industry has established before getting powerful enough to change those rules!

      Personally, it just feels disingenuous. Zara’s entire look underwent a massive, instant, and incredible rebrand. And that was due to the efforts of dozens and dozens behind the scene workers who are trying to make this woman and their team successful (and rich).

      And don’t get me wrong, it’s also okay to push back against the silly practices of said industry, but girl, YOU ARE an industry person!

      Edit: Y’all need to stop replying with comments that boil down to “if you ignore her actions, her words make sense.”

    14. nagidrac on

      > Playing the chart game is so dead to me. No one’s looking at the charts but industry people and maybe Taylor Swift fans.

      This ARMY erasure.

    16. imliterallyjustagirl on

      Zara pls… she keeps making TikTok’s about how this is her most successful era and how this is her dream but suddenly charts don’t matter lmao w/e

      Taylor is so gracious to other artists but atp I’d be such a bitch to people name dropping my name for a viral moment 😒

    17. neoncolour on

      More quotes from the interview :

      >> It’s not really about getting a No 1. […] It’s like: OK, we’ve done that. How can we keep creating? What other exciting opportunities are there now?

      On Chappell Roan :

      >> The more people hate her, the more I love her. I don’t like how she’s being treated at all. When a woman has boundaries, I think people freak out. Men can do violent criminal things and people applaud them, but when a woman says, ‘Stop following me,’ it’s controversial? It’s like: you guys just hate women, actually.

    18. SimilarNerve731 on

      ![gif](giphy|13cptIwW9bgzk6UVyr|downsized)

      Anytime a celeb mentions Taylor Swift and/or her fans in a negative way, I know there’s gonna be some good drama in the thread

      EDIT: The downvoting already started, proving my point LMAO

    21. MarieOMaryln on

      So did she throw a stray at Taylor to get more attention on this? I’m ambivalent on Zara personally but I’m doubting her sincerity a LOT right now.

      Edit: Not a Swiftie stand down

    22. ASamx on

      She’s right but of course certain stans will take this innocent comment to push a narrative and vilify her😭

    23. lilmonsterave on

      This comment section being the most hate I’ve seen Zara get outside of misogynistic circles, y’all didn’t even really read the quote and it shows😭💔

    24. PrincesstheCalicoCat on

      What a very interesting take from someone so very invested in leaving the Khia asylum. Because, sweet pea, getting people to buy and stream your stuff with frequency and regularity is the only way to stay out.

    29. gossipwithsprinkles on

      This is so unnecessarily shady especially when Zara watched symphony stateside and lush life on the Spotify charts every day like a hawk, released 9 versions of midnight sun + made tour exclusive single vinyls. Made tiktoks gagging at every chart achievement and now pretends like she doesn’t care. But hey of course everyone needs to name drop Taylor in some way in order to get another viral moment.

    31. simpleflavors1 on

      She already had the chart hits.  Knows it’s meaningless to her fans. 

    34. moologist on

      Everyone in the comments misinterpreting what she’s saying on purpose so they can claim a “gotcha” is super weird. She’s a professional musician, *obviously* she cares about how her music performs.

      A huge bulk of the article goes in depth about her artistry, the feeling of having to “sell her soul” to cater to the industry machine vs. making art that feels genuine and authentic which is what she “cares *more* about”.

    35. brechts_piratejenny on

      Girl. Please, be for real, just for a second. You probably want to be on the radio. You probably want to make some money. And you probably want to be famous. You probably want to keep performing. And you know what gets you there? Correct! Making good music. Being on the charts. 

      Her “I’m not like the other girls” shtick is getting really tired fast. It’s okay to want fame. It’s okay to want to make money from something you enjoy. And it’s okay to admit that too.

    39. Potential-Love5796 on

      What about the Army that cares? Or the Navy that cares? Or the Arianators that care? Or the Beyhive that cares? Or the Hooligans that care? Or the Livvies that care? Hmm funny that it’s the Swifties that catch strays from her.

      If you don’t like Taylor and how she looks at and dominates the charts say it with your whole chest and say Taylor loves the charts not her fans. Such performative bs.

    42. g00fyg00ber741 on

      The people here calling Zara disingenuous could at the very least read the article before making such an incorrect assumption:

      > Larsson says that Midnight Sun’s cultural moment is a happy accident. It was a fan who paired her and Clean Bandit’s 2017 hit Symphony with kaleidoscopic dolphin art for a viral TikTok in 2024; Larsson just leaned into her marketing savvy to bring Y2K mermaid-core style to Midnight Sun. After fans started creating DIY versions of her airbrushed baby tees, she introduced a moment in her show where she spray-paints one for a lucky fan. Has she learned that her instincts are better than a record label’s? “Yes,” she replies instantly. “I get this weekly data update of my chart positions and monthly listeners from my label. And it’s not interesting to me to look at because that’s last week’s data. It’s already old. I want to ask, ‘What are we creating, what are we doing now?’”
      She is putting the finishing touches to a Midnight Sun deluxe edition with all-women guest stars. Her label, Epic, “want me to release a new song before it drops to tease it”, she says. “And I’m like: it ruins the project and the specific rollout that I have planned.” It’s all a play for stats, which she finds depressing: “Playing the chart game is so dead to me. No one’s looking at the charts but industry people and maybe Taylor Swift fans.”

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