Glass Animals

Blending synth pop, indie, R&B, and hip-hop through inventive arrangements, the British ensemble Glass Animals crafts music that feels both exploratory and welcoming. Their 2014 debut album ZABA showcased Dave Bayley's androgynous falsetto alongside surreal lyrics that meshed seamlessly with rippling guitars and aquatic synths, yielding otherworldly yet captivating cuts such as the certified-platinum single "Gooey." With their follow-up, the 2016 Mercury Prize-nominated How to Be a Human Being, Glass Animals expanded their sonic palette and Bayley's narrative approach through a series of vivid character portraits. A more intimate perspective emerged on the 2020 release Dreamland, an abstractly autobiographical project that wove pop-culture references from Bayley's 1990s upbringing into forward-looking tracks like the global hit "Heat Waves." Building on that breakthrough—which earned a Grammy nomination—the band explored imaginative takes on humanity's desire for connection throughout their 2024 album I Love You So F***ing Much.

Born to a Welsh father and Israeli mother, singer/songwriter/guitarist Bayley grew up partly in Massachusetts before spending his teenage years in Texas, where he absorbed American pop culture along with the sounds of Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, and the Neptunes. At age 14 he relocated with his family to Oxford, England, where he connected with future bandmates Joe Seaward on drums, Drew MacFarlane handling guitars and keyboards, and Edmund Irwin-Singer on bass and keyboards. While studying medicine at King's College, Bayley's sleepless nights prompted him to compose tracks on his computer and share them with his friends, soon leading the group to perform the material together. They adopted the name Glass Animals after plucking two words at random from a dictionary and officially formed in 2010.

Still enrolled at university, the band issued their debut EP Leaflings on Kaya Kaya Records in 2012. A live performance drew the notice of producer Paul Epworth, who added them to his Wolf Tone roster. The Black Mambo/Exxus EP surfaced across Europe in 2013, while a U.S. release that same year introduced the Glass Animals EP, which included the Jean Deaux collaboration "Woozy." For their first full-length, the group left their Oxfordshire home studio for a London facility and honed their bubbling fusion of indie pop, electronic music, hip-hop, and R&B. Co-produced by Bayley and Epworth and partly sparked by William Steig's The Zabajaba Jungle, ZABA arrived in June 2014, later peaking at number 12 on Australia's ARIA chart and claiming the top spot on Billboard's Alternative New Artist Chart in the U.S. a year after its release. The single "Gooey" eventually earned platinum certification stateside, and the album's acclaim prompted an October 2015 collaboration with Joey Bada$$ on "Lose Control."

During an extensive world tour supporting ZABA, Glass Animals collected anecdotes from the individuals they met, which supplied lyrical material for their second album recorded in late 2015. Issued in August 2016, the concept album How to Be a Human Being assigned each track to a distinct character and achieved strong critical and commercial results, reaching the Top 20 in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. while landing at number 23 on the U.K. Albums Chart. It received a 2017 Mercury Prize nomination, claimed the 2018 Music Producers Guild Awards for U.K. Album of the Year and Self Producing Artist of the Year, and earned gold certifications in both the U.K. and Australia.

Progress paused in July 2018 when Seaward suffered a broken leg and fractured skull after being struck by a truck while cycling in Dublin. As he spent months relearning speech, mobility, reading, and drumming, Bayley produced and wrote for outside artists including Flume, 6LACK, and Khalid. Glass Animals signaled their return with the November 2019 Denzel Curry collaboration "Tokyo Drifting" and a year-end Oxford concert that marked Seaward's first onstage appearance since the accident. Drawing from the challenges and recovery they had faced, the August 2020 album Dreamland brought more autobiographical songwriting into their energetic style while incorporating lyrical and musical nods to the 1990s and early 2000s. It climbed to number two on the U.K. charts and number seven in the U.S. The single "Heat Waves" reached number one on Australia's ARIA chart in early 2021, regained the summit a year later, and became the first track to remain in the Australian Top Ten for over twelve months. Internationally it topped charts in four additional countries, including the U.S., where it set a record by taking 59 weeks to hit the peak of the Hot 100. The song also earned a BRIT Award nomination for Best British Single, and the band received a Best New Artist nod at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.

Following Dreamland's success, Bayley co-wrote and produced material for Florence + the Machine's 2022 album Dance Fever. He then composed much of the next Glass Animals project in isolation, drawing inspiration from the way human connection can eclipse cosmic distances. The resulting sci-fi-tinged love songs of July 2024's I Love You So F***ing Much were paired with liner notes by Gabrielle Zevin, whose novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examined comparable ideas.