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Heat Waves
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox song
| name = Heat Waves
| cover = Glass Animals - Heat Waves.png
| alt =
| type = single
| artist = Glass Animals
| album = Dreamland
| released =
| recorded =
| studio =
| genre =
* Psychedelic pop
* R&B
* pop rock
| length =
* 3:58 (album version)
* (radio edit)
| label =
* Wolf Tone
* Polydor
* Republic
| writer = Dave Bayley
| producer = Dave Bayley
| prev_title = Dreamland
| prev_year = 2020
| next_title = It's All So Incredibly Loud
| next_year = 2020
| misc =
}}
"'Heat Waves'" is a song by English indie rock group Glass Animals, released as a single from their third studio album 'Dreamland' on 29 June 2020. It was released alongside its music video.
A sleeper hit, "Heat Waves" is the group's most successful single to date. In addition to reaching number five on the UK Singles Chart and being a top-five hit in several other European countries, it reached number one in Australia, Canada, Lithuania, Switzerland and the United States, where it reached number one on the 'Billboard' Hot 100 after a record-breaking 59 weeks on the chart. At 86 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, it is also the 3rd longest-charting song ever on the chart. By September 2021, the song had accumulated more than one billion streams on Spotify. At the 2022 Brit Awards "Heat Waves" was nominated for Best British Single.
Composition
Bayley stated that "Heat Waves" "is about loss and longing, and ultimately realising you are unable to save something". He said that "Also, this song is about memories and it's very nostalgic, and sometimes people feel more of that in the winter. Maybe that's part of the reason this song's hung around for so bloody long everyone's locked inside and trapped in their own thoughts."
"Heat Waves" starts on a high and then drops into despair before rising again for a cheerful, optimistic finale, much like the crests and troughs of a real wave. Bayley came up with the chords one day while playing around on the guitar. He wrote the lyrics in just an hour, prompted by the death of a close friend whose birthday was in June.
"Heat Waves" is an example of 'Dreamland's incorporation of hip hop and electropop elements into Glass Animals' sound. It and "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" rejects the band's acoustic percussion and marimbas in favor of 808 sounds and skittering hi-hats. 'NME's Hannah Mylrea categorized the song as "earnest R&B run through the Glass Animals filter", and 'Pitchfork's Ian Cohen argued its guitars "could be plucked from any number of 'wavy hip-hop' sample packs meant to emulate Frank Ocean's 'Ivy' on a bedroom producer's budget". A major theme on 'Dreamland' is the pursuit of brief pleasures to cope with the hardships of life, such as lust for others. On "Heat Waves", Bayley sings repeatedly, "Sometimes all I think about is you/Late nights in the middle of June."
The band ran a remix competition for the track, with 19-year-old British producer Shakur Ahmad winning and having his remix issued by the band, alongside a remix by American DJ Diplo in August 2020. Another remix features vocals from American rapper Iann Dior.
Critical reception
Critics such as Robin Murray, Owen Richards, and Rob Waters praised "Heat Waves" as a "stunningly effective" pop track, "built on a delicious groove and utilising very conventional lyrical structures" while containing enough elements unique to Glass Animals to entice more listeners to them. 'No Ripcord's Ethan Gordon generally found 'Dreamland' "as momentarily annoying as it is infinitely forgettable" due to its combination of trap percussion and synthesizers being mostly "strained and unpleasant"; however, he considered "Heat Waves" to be the "strongest" mixture of those sounds.
Commercial performance
"Heat Waves" became a worldwide sleeper hit and the group's most successful single to date. It was voted into first place on the Australian Triple J Hottest 100 of 2020, making Glass Animals the first British act to top the countdown since Mumford & Sons won the 2009 poll with "Little Lion Man". It then spent seven weeks at the top of the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and was later certified as the number one song for 2021 in Australia. It reached No. 1 in March 2021, stayed there until April 2021, and returned to that position in March 2022. It is the first song ever to stay in the Australian top 10 for more than a year. It also reached the top 20 in several territories.
In the United States, "Heat Waves" peaked at number one on the 'Billboard' Hot 100 chart dated 12 March 2022, completing a record-breaking 59-week climb to the position. It dethroned 'Encanto's "We Don't Talk About Bruno" after five consecutive weeks at number one. "Heat Waves" previously reached number 10 on the Hot 100 in its 42nd week on the chart, breaking the record for the longest climb to the top 10, surpassing Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" (2007). The song also reached the top five in its 51st week on the chart, breaking the record previously set by Gabby Barrett's "I Hope" (2020). The song was in the top 10 up to its 80th week on the chart. No other song in the chart's history has reached such longevity. This longevity has been attributed to, among other things, a popular fan fiction, which shipped Minecraft YouTubers Dream and GeorgeNotFound.
On the UK Singles Chart the single originally peaked at number 19 in the first half of 2021. After its inclusion in the EA Sports video game 'FIFA 21' and wide usage as backing music in various TikTok videos, the song re-entered at number 18 in September 2021 and continued to climb into the top 5. The viral video also helped the song climb back up 31 places to number 14 on the Irish Singles Chart in its 41st week on the chart, before peaking at number 5. The track has spent a total of 22 weeks in the top 10 to date, the most among tracks in 2021. The song reached number one on the 'Billboard' Global 200 in the issue dated 5 March 2022, and also reached the same peak on the Global Excl. US chart.
Lyric video
A lyric video heavily based on the vaporwave imagery was released through Glass Animals official YouTube account on 20 July 2020. The video was produced by designer Notnarcs. It gained almost 30 million views during its first year on YouTube. As of June 2022, the lyric video on YouTube has amassed over 100 million views.
Music video
The music video was directed by Colin Read and premiered on 29 June 2020. It shows frontman Dave Bayley walking through the streets of East London pulling a wagon stacked with several TVs, filmed by his neighbours using their phones during the COVID-19 lockdowns, before arriving at a venue, setting the TVs up on a stage that then display his bandmates playing their instruments, and singing the rest of the song. Bayley called it "a love letter to live music and the culture and togetherness surrounding it". As of 3 June 2022, the music video on YouTube has amassed over 300 million views.
Track listing
Personnel
'Glass Animals'
* Dave Bayley vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums, strings, percussion, producer, recording engineer
* Edmund Irwin-Singer guitar, programming
* Drew MacFarlane guitar, strings, programming
* Joe Seaward drums
'Technical personnel'
* Riley McIntyre recording engineer
* Chris Galland mixing engineer
* Manny Marroquin mixing engineer
* Chris Gehringer mastering engineer
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"|+ Weekly chart performance for "Heat Waves"
! scope="col"| Chart (20202022)
! scope="col"| Peak
position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Brazil (Top 100 Brasil)
| 74
|-
! scope="row"| Bulgaria (PROPHON)
| 10
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Croatia ('Billboard')
| 10
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Denmark (Tracklisten)
| 9
|-
|-
! scope="row"| France (SNEP)
| 14
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Greece International (IFPI)
| 2
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Iceland (Pltutindi)
| 5
|-
! scope="row"| India (IMI)
| 1
|-
! scope="row"| Indonesia ('Billboard')
| 6
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Italy (FIMI)
| 35
|-
! scope="row"| Lebanon (The Official Lebanese Top 20)
| 14
|-
! scope="row"| Lithuania (AGATA)
| 1
|-
! scope="row"| Luxembourg ('Billboard')
| 1
|-
! scope="row"| Malaysia (RIM)
| 3
|-
! scope="row"| Mexico Airplay ('Billboard')
| 13
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)
| 2
|-
! scope="row"| Norway (VG-lista)
| 2
|-
! scope="row"| Paraguay (SGP)
| 98
|-
! scope="row" | Philippines ('Billboard')
| 20
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Romania (UPFR)
| 6
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Singapore (RIAS)
| 2
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Slovakia (Singles Digitl Top 100)
| 1
|-
! scope="row"| South Africa (RISA)
| 11
|-
! scope="row"| Spain (PROMUSICAE)
| 49
|-
! scope="row"| Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)
| 6
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| US 'Rolling Stone' Top 100
| 6
|-
! scope="row"| Vietnam (Vietnam Hot 100)
| 16
|}
Monthly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
See also
* List of highest-certified singles in Australia
* List of Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 2022
* List of Canadian Hot 100 number-one singles of 2022
References
Category:2020 songs
Category:2020 singles
Category:Billboard Global 200 number-one singles
Category:Billboard Global Excl. U.S. number-one singles
Category:Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Category:British contemporary R&B songs
Category:Canadian Hot 100 number-one singles
Category:Glass Animals songs
Category:Internet memes introduced in 2021
Category:Number-one singles in Australia
Category:Number-one singles in Switzerland
Category:Polydor Records singles
Category:Republic Records singles
Category:Psychedelic pop songs
Category:British pop rock songs
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