Grammy-winning and 8x BRIT-nominated British pop trio Clean Bandit have achieved #1 on TikTok’s Top 50 Music Chart and TikTok’s Billboard Chart with their smash hit ‘Symphony feat. Zara Larsson’, for two weeks running so far. 7 years after its initial release, the song has been propelled into virality by a dolphin meme trend that has organically sprung up across the world. The memes are being created by pairing the chorus of Symphony with images of dolphins, jumping, with a funny but unfortunate phrase written over it.

In recent weeks since the meme has exploded, ‘Symphony’ streams have shot up to over 2 billion streams across all platforms. The 2017 track’s initial success meant it was already part of Spotify’s Billions Club along with three more Clean Bandit hits: 'Rather Be', 'Rockabye', and 'Solo'.

Talking on the resurgence of ‘Symphony’, Jack Patterson of Clean Bandit says “The mad thing about the dolphins is that it feels like Gen Alpha have latched onto the original feeling of the melodies and chords that we wrote. Because what no one knows, is that when we first wrote the song, the lyrics were initially completely different: 

“I've been hearing symphonies

With you all I heard was silence

A requiem for you and me

And every melody is timeless

You had me fooled

You had me scared

Thinking I’m no one without you there

But with you gone

I can hear my heart

And if you want the truth

Music sounds better without you”

The dolphin memes - which are essentially fml memes, using our most triumphant, joyful music, but with a sentence written over dolphin pictures about utter despair - tap into this original lyricism that was inspired by the chords in the first place! So, it is very interesting to us.”

Last month, Clean Bandit released their latest single ‘Cry Baby’ with Anne-Marie and David Guetta – listen here.

Author: Adam Bailey

Adam is a regular contributor for established press release distribution website Release-News.com. He writes on a wide range of topics including music.