'Heat Waves' by Glass Animals was released as a single on June 29, 2020, and in March 2022, this week, 'Heat Waves' hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 after a 59-week climb, by far the longest climb to #1 in Billboard history, Billboard reports. The funny thing is, it's an old song now - SOUNDSCAN will register it as a "catalog" transaction since it's older than 18 months.

Glass Animals wrote 'Heat Waves' in desperation at the end of a long and unproductive day in the recording studio in the summer of 2018, and it took almost 3 years for the song to break the waves, BBC reports. When they demoed it, frontman Dave Bayley saw there was somebody else in the studio, playing piano, totally in key, realizing it was - Johnny Depp. However, things didn't go smooth from there - the band had to delay their third album after drummer Joe Seaward suffered devastating injuries in a cycling accident. By the time he'd recuperated, the pandemic had derailed the band's comeback, and they were told to "write off" their album until they could tour again. The band decided to give it a chance. The video for the song, taped during the pandemic, was made with the help of Bayley's neighbors. Once released, last summer, the song didn't make it to the charts until it appeared on the multi-million-selling video game Fifa 21, only to reach the top of the charts this year.