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

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

The Oxford indie group's song spent 59 weeks on its slow ascent to the summit of the Billboard Hot 100.

The previous record was held by Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, on 35 weeks.

"I absolutely can't believe it," singer Dave Bayley said. "For it to do this means the absolute world."

He added in a Twitter message to 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 have embraced it so much."

The song, which was originally released as a single in June 2020, first snuck into the US singles chart in 100th place in January 2021.

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

Most weeks ever to reach US number one:

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

Frontman Dave Bayley, who wrote and produced the grower, told the BBC it had its genesis as far back as May 2018.

"We were winding down from touring our second album and I hired a studio in north London called The Church," he explained last year.

"I was in the little basement room, which used to be the kitchen - and I've recently found out that's where Bob Dylan used to sit and write. He only wanted to be in the kitchen, apparently.

"Anyway, I spent all day there… but I was fishing and catching rubbish. At the end of the day, I was ready to go home, but I just picked up a guitar to try one more time, and I just played those chords."