Heat Waves is this year’s student contribution to the countdown. I put a Google Form for my students to request music for independent work time. It got a lot of hits early on, but I think the kids have mostly forgotten about it. So this request was pretty good, as student requests go. I didn’t mind playing it multiple times.

Billboard quotes frontman Dave Bayley: “It was late at night. I was in a weird place. There’s a certain time of year where I always start to feel a bit s–t, because I lost someone really important to me, and ‘round their birthday, I start to feel a bit weird. Their birthday is in June, by the way. It was coming up to that period and it was late at night. Hence the lyric. [‘Late nights in the middle of June.’] So I was sitting back and feeling nostalgic and reflective.” ~ https://www.billboard.com/…/glass-animals-heat-waves…/

Leosigh.com, also quoting Bayley: “This video is a love letter to live music and the culture and togetherness surrounding it. It was filmed at the peak of the lockdown in my neighbourhood in East London by the lovely people who live around me, just using their phones. These are people who are usually out at shows, in galleries, going to cinemas etc. These venues are left empty now, and many of them will not survive.” ~ https://leosigh.com/glass-animals-heat-waves-music-video…/