It’s now an established fact that social networking can be the difference between a band fading into obscurity or achieving a global smash hit - here’s how Glass Animals did it.
Glass Animals: Social Network Sensation
The band is the perfect representation of the seismic changes that have occurred in the music industry over the last decade, with musicians better able to directly represent themselves and their music via social networks and streaming services.
By 2016, Glass Animals may have had a back catalog of just two albums but had already amassed over two hundred million Spotify streams worldwide and boasted almost three million monthly listeners on the platforms. That’s the streaming equivalent of selling around 600,000 albums. Not bad for an alternative indie rock band from Oxford.
Making (Heat) Waves - Against the Odds
Released during the pandemic, the dreamy meditation on missing a friend that is the single Heat Waves had a convoluted route to hit-dom. Recorded on Bayley’s hard drive in 2018, it wasn’t just the global pandemic that put the brakes on the band’s plans to record it as one of the tracks on their planned Dreamland album. When drummer Joe Seward suffered a serious skull injury while cycling in Dublin, he lost his short-term memory and had to relearn how to talk, walk, eat, and write. Things seemed grim, and the band ditched album and touring plans, fearful for their friend.
Thankfully, Seaward went on to make a full recovery…just in time for the pandemic to bring all live music to a total standstill. Bayley recalls managers advocating that the band simply release the album, promote it as best they could - and basically write it off and get onto the next one.
Virtual Gigging
But the band had other ideas. Virtual performances, remix competitions launched via social networks, and a covers album helped move Dreamland towards mainstream-dom. The members of Glass Animals put their all into their virtual gigs, seeing these online concerts as an opportunity rather than a second-best scenario. To this end, the band deployed slick, beautiful visual effects to create a range of digital worlds for the audience to enjoy along with the music.
Game Changer
It was Heat Waves’ appearance as the theme song on the mega-popular multi-player game Fifa 21 in October 2020 that really kicked things off. According to Spotify streaming data released in 2022, the track holds the crown as the best and most popular Fifa track of all time.
The pandemic was partly responsible for the explosion of Fifa 21, which is also - to date - the most successful Fifa game ever released. Purchased more than thirty million times during COVID-19 and its subsequent lockdowns, the game offered those stuck at home some engrossing escapism. And, of course, with a wider audience than ever before playing the game, this resulted in huge numbers of people discovering both Heat Waves and the band behind the track.
The Breakthrough
With the track now getting noticed by a much wider audience, Spotify promotion saw Glass Animals’ music become wildly popular on the platform, breaking out of the indie charts to appear on more prominent playlists. This upward trend was further driven by the efforts of the Minecraft YouTube community when Heat Waves was used as the soundtrack for a widely-circulated piece of fan fiction. And the rest is history: the track has now racked up over 225 million streams on Spotify - and this figure continues to grow.
Glass Animals: The Future
Glass Animals continues to push the envelope, both in terms of their gorgeously psychedelic musical offerings and their ability to harness the power of the streaming platforms and social networks to connect with their fans and keep their tracks in front of a wide audience.
The band has recently announced a major tour set to take place in 2024, promising an unforgettable live experience in various locations across the US. With their trademark unique energy, mesmerizing light shows, and the tantalizing possibility of being joined by a special guest or two, you’ll need to be quick if you want to secure tickets.
