Glass Animals’ ‘Heat Waves’ Still Biggest Song In Aus Two Years After Release

Two years after its release, UK outfit Glass Animals’ Heat Waves isn’t showing any signs of cooling off anytime soon.

The track, taken from the album Dreamland, has been an Aussie favourite since its release in June of 2020 - a fact cemented by the group’s position atop the Hottest 100 only a few months later (and fans will finally be able to see them play it live this July when the band tours Australia).

And while the usual fanfare might slowly die down the further away from release you get, for something like Heat Waves, the song just continues to dominate the ARIA Singles Chart (and charts across the globe for that matter).

The track first made its appearance in the Top 50 in mid-December 2020 at #45 before steadily rising in the weeks that followed and landing at #2 at the beginning of February 2021, where it sat for four weeks before finally claiming #1 - a position it held onto for six consecutive weeks. Since then, it’s only left the Top 10 once, dropping to #11 for a week in August of last year.

This past week, it racked up its fifth week at #1 in Australia this year, now holding the record for most weeks on top of the chart in 2022 alongside Cold Heart for Elton John and Dua Lipa, as reported in our weekly chart wrap.

Given Heat Waves has spent five consecutive weeks at the top, it holds the longest continual run at the top for this year (Cold Heart notched up five weeks from two separate runs).

Overall, the track has spent 11 weeks at the top (six weeks in 2021, five in 2022), making it only one of three songs to do so this decade, alongside Mood for 24KGOLD and Blinding Lights for The Weeknd.

Zooming out further, Heat Waves joins eleven-week chart-toppers Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (#1 Jul. ’91), Spice Girls’ Wannabe (#1 Nov. ‘96), Drake’s God’s Plan (#1 Feb. ’18), Blinding Lights (#1 Jan. ’20) and Mood (#1 Oct. ’20).

The Guardian recently described its success as “the slowest ascent to the top of all time and a sign of how unpredictable a hit can be right now”, highlighting it took 59 weeks from the time Heat Waves entered the US Billboard charts to it finally claiming #1 where it currently sits - a position its held for five weeks.

Added to that, it peaked at #5 in the UK and has hit #1 in Canada, India and various parts of Europe.

Speaking with Billboard last month when the track hit #1 in the US, frontman Dave Bayley noted the first real success for the now megahit was in Australia.

“That social media response of people reacting to it being announced as #1 on the triple j Hottest 100 was — because we’d been locked down so long — the first time we’d seen people dance to the song, react to it,” he said, adding that “it was insane”.

On the song’s lasting popularity, he noted: “I think people do like a bit of familiarity when there’s a bit of like, discomfort in the world. And I think maybe with [Heat Waves] — the song is about nostalgia and the past, and remembering people and missing people. And I think through the last couple years, and still now, people have been missing their loved ones. And not everyone’s been able to just go visit their parents, or visit their best friend. It’s been quite difficult to do that… that’s my hunch as to why people have gravitated towards this song a little bit.”

This week, Heat Waves will need to fend off Harry Styles’ new single, As It Was, if it wants to claim six weeks at #1 this year.

For all details on Glass Animals’ Dreamland Australian tour, click here.