.@GlassAnimals‘ “Heat Waves” rises 13-10 on this week’s #Hot100.

It reaches the top 10 in its 42nd week. That’s the longest trip to the top 10 in the chart’s 63-year history.

— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) November 8, 2021

The record was previously held by American Idol winner Carrie Underwood and her Grammy winning single “Before He Cheats”. Underwood took a meagre 38 weeks to climb into the top 10 and peak in 8^th position. 4 Weeks less than Glass Animals journey.

Meanwhile, the bands UK tour began in Glasgow last night. The tour will see them all over the UK with dates in Birmingham, London, Dublin and many others. See the full list of tour dates here.

While announcing the tour, the band also released a new single “I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)”. Most of the viral success the band received from “Heat Waves” had clearly evaporated as the new single didn’t break the top 100 in the US or UK. The song has, however, been well received by fans along with it’s video directed by Drew Kirsch who co-directed Taylor Swift’s video for her single “Me”.

Upon releasing the single, frontman, Dave Bayley stated “The new single is intended to provide a musical release from the pressure cooker of a global pandemic”. The band also expressed the sensation of releasing new music during a pandemic as “overwhelming”. Bayley elaborated “That’s what this track is about – that pressure cooker exposing and expanding so many cracks, but struggling to fill them in and decompress”.

The bands slow and steady approach seems to be working well for them too, as “Heat Wave” also managed to land 5^th position in the UK Singles Chart. While not quite as long winded as the climb in the US, it still took 35 consecutive weeks of climbing to finally make it. Dreamland is also, unsurprisingly, Glass Animals’ most commercially successful album debuting at number 2 upon the albums’ release in 2020.

Despite only reaching number 43 on the UK singles charts, ‘Heat Waves,’ has been a big success for Glass Animals amongst their niche and loyal following in the UK and in their more mainstream audience worldwide. As well as their hottest 100 success the song’s international popularity is reflected in their streaming figures online, with the song’s official video clocking 8.6 million views on Youtube and the lyric video not far behind on 6.5 million. As well as this, the other big news the band announced yesterday was the passing of the 100 million streams milestone for the song on Spotify.

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The announcement that ‘Heat Waves,’ had surpassed 100 million streams, in fact reaching a total of 100,215,480 at the time of announcement, was accompanied by another emotive caption from the band. Frontman Dave Bayley wrote to express his disbelief at how the song had been transported from rough demo’s and late night vocal recordings to an international success. This achievement certainly goes some way to endorsing the value of online streaming platforms in giving a voice to more alternative bands and artists which don’t often get deserved recognition through the conventional charts system.

While the streaming model certainly has its flaws, with low royalty payments per stream being the main obstacle for smaller niche or emerging artists, the loosening of the hold on the industry’s creatives from the conventional gatekeepers has definitely gone some way to democratising the industry. For Glass Animals, the system has worked in their favour, their compatibility with an internet-based streaming first audience demographic has meant that they have been able to total up enough streams to equate to a healthy year’s income on one track alone. However with label’s continuing to make deductions from royalties even for streaming rights, there is still some way to go is musicians are to truly start receiving the money they deserve for all their hard work.

Despite the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the UK, there is still some hope for the future of live music in the UK. Although Glastonbury may have been cancelled this year, Glass Animals for one are pressing ahead with live dates scheduled for the summer of 2021. Fans of the band and of any British artists can only hope and pray that the situation is brought under control in time. UK dates are as follows:

16/05/2021 – O2 Academy – Birmingham
19/05 – O2 Victoria Warehouse – Manchester
21/05 – O2 Academy – Leeds
23/05 – Rock City – Nottingham
25/05 – O2 Academy – Bristol
26/05 – Alexandra Palace – London

Filmed at the deserted London concert hall, Hackney Earth, Bayley’s performance takes place where the Heat Waves music video was recently shot. The performance features Bayley sitting alone, tenderly picking at his electric guitar, delivering a hazy rendition of the track. 

Bayley is bathed in blue and pink stage lights, his hypnotic voice enveloping the entirety of the empty gig venue. The camera slowly turns between various close-up shots, giving the performance an intimate feel. Bayley’s astounding vocals carry just as powerfully in the unoccupied Hackney Earth as they would in a packed-out Glass Animals gig, conveying the musician’s vocal versatility.

Where Heat Waves is a pop-psyche, synthesised sensation, Bayley’s solo performance is a divergent reworking of the vibrant, percussively charged original. Singing the track’s wistful lyrics, “Sometimes all I think about is you/Late nights in the middle of June”, Bailey’s stripped down rendition allows the track’s poignant lyricism to resonate all the more deeply. 

Within the YouTube livestream Glass Animals also included a direct link to make donations for Crew Nation. Formed by Live Nation to combat Covid-19’s strain on the music industry and its live performance workers, Glass Animals shared their support for Crew Nations and independent music venues with the following statement: “Hackney Earth is one of my favourite local independent venues here in London…one of the many live music institutions at risk of closure. Miss you all and hope to be playing live again soon. Donate here if you can.” Donations to Crew Nation can be made here. 

Dropping after the recently celebrated singles Your Love (Déjà Vu), Tokyo Drifting and Dreamland, Heat Waves is the fourth treasure from Glass Animals in the wake of their highly anticipated third album. Also entitled Dreamland, the band postponed its release from 7th July to the 7th August out of respect and solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement. Glass Animals said of the album’s postponement: “All eyes and minds need to be focused on civil rights…the fight for civil rights is so much bigger than any single piece of music.”

Formed in Oxford, Glass Animals is made up of members Dave Bayley, Drew Macfarlane, Edmund Irwin-Singer and Joe Seaward. Meeting each other during secondary school, Glass Animals have been making eclectic music together since 2010. After drummer Joe Seaward experienced a horrific bike accident, Glass Animals took a creative hiatus, but are now back and geared for Dreamland’s release. Seaward said to NME of his return: “There is no better feeling in the world than writing and recording a song and feeling proud of it”.

Heat Waves is out now.