Zara Larsson, the 28-year-old Swedish singer-songwriter, has made a crazy comeback into pop culture. With the help of a trend and great strategic marketing, Larsson opened for Tate McRae on the US leg of her “Miss Possessive” Tour and built upon her new fanbase by immediately touring her own album on the “Midnight Sun” Tour, cementing herself as an artist to watch.
How does a dolphin meme tie into this? In August 2024, the “Symphony” dolphin meme took over TikTok. The trend was to post sad or dark emotional confessions over a colorful image, with a dolphin, as the song “Symphony” by Clean Bandit featuring Zara Larsson plays in the background. Larsson contributed to the trend by sharing it on social media and even playing the dolphin visual during the song at her shows. With the hype surrounding the song, “Symphony” was pushed to the top of Billboard’s TikTok chart. This ultimately prompted her to have a massive rebrand.
Her rebrand consists of a summer neon pop aesthetic. The aesthetic can be seen in her music videos as well as her wardrobe, which has become saturated with bright colors and clear Y2K vibes. She also frequently uses imagery like butterflies, flowers, the ocean, and sunsets, which ties directly into the “Symphony” dolphin meme. Her music video for “Midnight Sun,” which features crashing waves, airbrushed t-shirts, and Larsson singing with the bright orange of the sunset behind her, effectively captures her aesthetic makeover.
With her songs “Pretty Ugly” and “Crush” also gaining virality and people on the internet sharing videos of her opening for Tate McRae, Larsson continued to capitalize on the newfound popularity and gain a new audience that had been missing out on her talent.
During this era, Larsson has also been creating her own viral moments on tour. For example, her song “Lush Life,” which was released 10 years ago, returned to popularity after a fan joined Zara on stage during a show in Amsterdam and knew all of the choreography to the song. After that, fans joined Zara at different shows to perform the choreography, and soon the performances were trending all over TikTok. More recently, a new dance trend has been emerging due to the “Stateside” remix she performs on. Seriously, it’s like trend after trend.
Returning to the pop music scene with a strong identity and creative strategy allowed Larsson’s comeback to be one that everyone on the internet can root for.
