Afterwards, he decided to make the lyrics more vague, so it could also apply “to a relationship situation” and appeal to a wider audience. That’s because the subject of the song is so personal he can barely perform it without crying: the bittersweet, nostalgic nature of the chord progression made him think of his best friend who died. Despite the track’s enormous success, he still thinks it may have worked better in somebody else’s voice.
Initially, Bayley wasn’t even sure he wanted to perform the song himself, and attempted to pitch it to another artist. “He almost spoke to me afterwards as if there had been a fart in the room – something weird and slightly negligible. “He literally didn’t react in any way to the song,” recalls Bayley. The actor, unfortunately, did not spot Heat Waves’ potential. Or at least he thought he was by himself – towards the end of his session he turned round to discover Johnny Depp was watching him. Its subsequent ascent up the charts – peaking at No 5 in the UK, No 1 in Australia and No 3 in the US, where it currently stands – was unprecedented in its leisurely nature it now holds the record for the longest climb to the Top 5 in the US chart’s history.įrontman and songwriter Dave Bayley wrote Heat Waves alone in the spring of 2019 in a recording studio complex in London. A sultry, wistful number with an extremely catchy chorus, Heat Waves has had an unusually slow rise to prominence: it was released in June 2020 and for months it failed to break into the UK Top 40 or US Billboard Hot 100. This is a remarkable achievement for an act with no previous big hits – but that’s not the only strange thing about their success.
It was a feat their fans saw coming: last year, Heat Waves was the fourth most-streamed song in the US and the most-streamed in Australia, having been played more than 1bn times worldwide. This week, the Oxford quartet became the first British group to top Spotify’s global songs chart with their synthpop single Heat Waves, racking up 4.26m plays per day on the streaming platform. W ith solo artists currently dominating the charts and the zeitgeist, now is not the ideal time to be in a band – unless it’s Glass Animals.
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