Glass Animals: UK band’s hit Heat Waves sets new record to top US chart

British band Glass Animals have risen to number one in the US with their sleeper hit Heat Waves, setting a new record for longest time to reach the top.

The Oxford indie group’s song spent 59 weeks on its slow climb to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You held the previous record at 35 weeks.

“I absolutely can’t believe it,” said singer Dave Bayley. “To it it means the absolute world.”

He added a Twitter message to the fans: “This song came out at the beginning of the pandemic and we didn’t think it would really go anywhere because of that and it has because you guys embraced it so much.”

The song, which was originally released as a single in June 2020, first crept into the US singles chart at number 100 in January 2021.

Its tortoise-like rise to mainstream success is thanks in part to a surge in interest in TikTok last summer, when users, including the band themselves, posted videos attached to the song’s chorus “All I think about is you”.

Back in April 2021, BBC music correspondent Mark Savage described the “muzzy” track as “a dreamy reflection on missing a friend” and “the ultimate sleeper hit”.

Most weeks to reach US number one:

Glass Animals was nominated for the 2017 Mercury Prize and Heat Waves peaked at number five in the UK in October 2021.

Frontman Dave Bayley, who wrote and produced Grower, told the BBC its creation began back in May 2018.

“We’ve just retired from touring with our second album and I’ve rented a studio in north London called The Church,” he explained last year.

“I was in the little basement room that used to be the kitchen – and I found out recently that Bob Dylan used to sit and write there. Apparently he just wanted to be in the kitchen.

“Anyway, I spent all day there… but I was fishing and catching junk. At the end of the day I wanted to go home but I just picked up a guitar to try again and I just played those chords.”