Oh, you thought I was done talking about Dave Bayley and Glass Animals? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I have to talk about the album that is the reason I listened to their latest album which I am officially calling my 2024 album of the year. Think of this as a pregame for that end of year recap.

When I think about what makes up any of my favorite albums of all time, it’s usually a mix of a deep personal connection, timeless songs, and a concept that gets me eager to dive back into it every so often…and it blows my mind in a new way every time. But it’s not often that a main reason I keep going back to a body of work is because I’m in awe of the production choices. Dreamland by Glass Animals has all of the above.

What Dave, Drew, Ed, and Joe of Glass Animals achieved in Dreamland is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Yeah, you can say that about every Glass Animals album, but for me, it is a marvel to understand the perfect storm that this album is. Dreamland is a sonic journey of nostalgia that manages to capture both deeply personal feelings and the collective zeitgeist of the year it was released in: 2020.

It’s ok, I shuddered at the thought of recalling that year too. Wild how soon it’s gonna be 5 years since we entered the timeline of living in unprecedented times.

Now, I was definitely blogging my way through the pandemic and this album was in the rotation, but I wasn’t as fixated on it then like I am now. I’ve been landing in this place lately where the more I reflect on that time of my life and the world around me in 2020, the more this album helps me make sense of everything that has happened since. And it is WILD that this album seems to be holding more weight as time passes. I mean it — we’re gonna need to preserve this album for history purposes if you ask me.

So let me start by unpacking the perfect storm behind this album. For starters, it’s quite literally a miracle that this album happened.

Joe, the band’s drummer, had gotten into a nearly fatal accident while on tour in 2018. Joe literally needed brain surgery because of the accident. They stopped touring for the rest of the year and the band’s attention focused on seeing if Joe could even continue. Dave got into a nostalgic mood to cope as a result and started writing very personal songs while collaborating with other artists. What ensued was an album concept that I can only describe as a sort of prophecy for what the world would soon experience.

Dreamland was written in 2019 and released in 2020. And what was everyone doing in 2020? Contending with cancelled plans and getting nostalgic. Dave, I don’t know how you could have known. But the fact that you somehow did and released this weighted blanket of an album is a big reason why I’m in awe of you.

This album was born into was utter chaos…but everything that came from this album roll out made the most sense. Looking back and researching it all has literally given me the biggest amount of FOMO lol. Glass Animals released the wildest merch ever like toilet paper (at a time when it was scarce lol) and nunchucks, created an open source site with everything they made for the album for fans to use to create new things, and created a “Live In the Internet” livestream. These are just some of the things they did!! This all living in the digital world feels so in line with the album in a profoundly comforting way.

When I think of this album I think of the inexplicable groove it has. The grooves weave through Dave’s creatively said words recalling frustrating, heartbreaking, even traumatizing memories. It’s an album that you can dance your way through and have dissociative moments to. And that duality feels so important to me because that’s how I feel like I’ve been living since 2020.

I was talking to my therapist earlier this week trying to understand why I’ve gotten into these paralyzed states of numbness when I’ve had trouble with the directions my career has taken both in 2020 and the past year or so. I found myself thinking about 2020 and how I tried to numb myself while working a job I didn’t care for – to the point of my mental health getting so bad that I’d have days where I would wish I could get COVID and pass away. It was a really dark place. Then I started thinking about how a similar numbness seemed to have started to settle in last December when I felt myself start to lose excitement for the work I was doing. It was nowhere near as dark as the mental space of 2020 but the numbness still caught me by surprise. I didn’t realize I was feeling unfulfilled for months and I still don’t exactly know where it came from. The ending of the last chapter was not my choice though. It’s been a really a tough thing to sit with and I feel like I’ve avoided it as much as I possibly could. I’m realizing at the heart of it all is my struggle to feel the feelings of disappointment and grief about it all – the grief of being so inescapably, messily human.

And that’s what all of Glass Animals’s songs are helping me do in this moment, but specifically the Dreamland album. This album feels like emotional whack-a-mole in the vibiest way possible. Dave’s normally sweet and gentle voice morphs with heavy Auto-Tune, percussive raps with bravado, and even angry distorted shouts, all for the sake of conveying the pains of past versions of himself. The fact that this album was released in 2020 and seemed to capture the relationship between nostalgia and grief before anyone could articulate it is the reason why we need to preserve this album in a time capsule. Or at least I will. This album was the most personal album Dave had put out until he released this year’s I Love You So F***ing Much. But let me talk about that one next month. For now, this album has a lot of context we need to dive into before we get to that one. So let’s talk about the songs on Dreamland and how they’ve resonated on multiple layers.

Dreamland

“You’ve had too much of that digital love…”

This song feels like I’m climbing into my bed under layers of blankets in the midst of a really bad mental health day. (Which admittedly, I’ve been having a lot of lately.) Dave really does an incredible job of setting up the album with this song by giving a preview of some of the themes/topics in it. It so beautifully invites you into the world of this album. And then it also is such a strong standalone song. Without fail, the main vibraphone melody that plays gives me chills. It’s like a sonic cue to when I start dissociating to think about the past these days, which I’ve also been doing quite often. This song has been helping me weave my way through my mind as I’ve tried to make sense of both life since 2020 and all the memories that have caused me to act how I have throughout my life. Dave’s voice acts as a gentle tour guide in this song, helping me realize that there’s purpose to going further back than you think you need. The “all around your head” being panned left and right in a way that swirls between headphones really makes you feel like he’s singing all around your head. Genius, the man is A GENIUS.

Tangerine

“I’m begging, hands, knees, please tangerine…”

This song makes me feral because it is one of the catchiest songs I’ve ever heard. It grooves in a sparkly way and has so many vivid pictures in the lyrics. I listened to this one on repeat in early 2021 while I was contending with my pre-pandemic ex and some new anger that had sprung up about how he treated me in that dating situation. I felt seen in the way the verses have this almost passive aggressive intensity to them. It contrasts with the pleading, sugary pop that is the chorus. I remember bopping along to this song at that time and trying to figure out if I did ever want to reunite with that ex (I didn’t). That contrasts with my most recent heartbreak where I’ve gone back and forth on if I would ever want to reunite with my ex from last year. Of all the lyrics, I currently feel the most seen by “are you stuck in your old ways?” And I feel myself asking that question and being asked that question. This album has so many moments where there’s a couple lyrics that almost snap you back into the present reality and it feels a bit disorienting…which is ultimately good. Dave is such a beast at vocal layering in this song too. The vocals feel so full with contrasting harmonies. This song just really makes me think and I feel like the video calls me to examine my patterns with my parents. It’s an unexpected layer to unpack among such an upbeat vibe.

The interludes

I remember first listening to this album and not entirely understanding why Dave would put such personal audios in. But now, I can’t picture this album without them. Dave said in an interview that it’s a way to show his mom being a constant among all the memories. And that is just the sweetest thing. His little baby voice just makes my heart so full. The “rockets” one gets me every time because you can hear the childlike wonder and the sweet attention from his mom. These little intimate moments somehow ground the album in this delightfully unexpected way, as if to say that little kid version of every one of us still exists. But I gotta say, my favorite transition is the one that bleeds into “Hot Sugar”.

Hot Sugar

“So cool but we don’t talk…”

This is legit one of my favorite songs ever and I think it warrants me unpacking why because it’s usually the songs I love most that have some hard truth for me to contend with. I said previously that this song basically crafts a sexy and disappointing feeling. It’s slick but you feel the let down in it — the equivalent of driving an expensive convertible you borrowed down PCH. There’s so much great ear candy in this song and it makes it a delight to listen to it over and over and over again. I might be addicted to this song. But that may be Dave’s intention with this song: to create an intoxicating adventure in realizing that the object of your affections is actively letting you down. And I know that well, I don’t I? I’ve spent a huge chunk of my life obsessed with the optics of things: dressing in quirky but eye-catching ways, seeking to look like I’m always moving forward from what has tried to get me down, trying my best to appear palatable around whoever’s near me, putting up with mistreatment because I don’t want to be seen as disagreeable, the list goes on. I’ve been realizing lately that I shouldn’t be dismissing my discomfort. Sure, sometimes I need to put on a brave face and carry on. But for that to be my modus operandi is quite literally the definition of self-betrayal. I’m so happy that Dave Bayley somehow captured that dynamic in a song because it’s a complex thing that only certain disappointments (ahem, exes) bring out.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

“Fuck that shit now I go my way and you go yours…”

This song bounces in such a sinister way when you consider the lyrics. Dave has said that he wrote this song about a childhood friend that he lost touch with when he moved to the UK at 14. This childhood friend apparently went on to attempt a school shooting in high school. Seriously wild trauma. Dave uses the lyrics as a way to try make sense of his feelings about it all and trying to understand how this kid could’ve gone this way. There’s an undercurrent of grief and disbelief here as Dave tries to unpack the memory, which has been something I’ve been wrestling a lot with lately. The lyrics go back and forth between childhood imagery like “Pokemon and bottle rockets” and more intense pictures like visiting this person in jail with “touch the glass I’ll feel ya through it”. But sonically it’s such a bop you could listen to this one millions of times and you’d miss it. I know I did. I love the range of things that Dave uses as a percussive elements here: kiss sounds, a “rahhh” before the last verse, the sound you make snapping your tongue against the roof of your mouth, the ding of a cash register, faint whistling in the first verse, even the cadence that he sings/raps in. There’s a swagger to this song that I can best describe as Wavey Davey peeking through. I need everyone to know this song. Mostly because I’m convinced I could do a decent job at it during karaoke. Dave really has the most fun performing it and I love the energy created in the venue when he does.

Tokyo Drifting

“Wavey Davey’s on fire, you still got it alright…”

Dave made the heaviest beat with this song for reallll. I loved hearing him and Denzel talk about how when he made this beat he was immediately like “nah, this is too heavy for me”. The lyrics in this song are less about memories and more about tapping into a character that is opposite of your day to day. As a former high school theatre kid, this concept is kind of everything to me. The way Dave pronounces things in this song is just addicting. He almost seems to slur his words and it makes it so fun. I specifically love the way he says “tequila” in this song. Like yes David, you’re invited to the carne asada. Meanwhile, Denzel Curry takes this song to the heights that it deserves. His rap continues Dave’s playfulness in the flow and the lyrics and it really punctuates the beat in a way that feels so right. Whereas it can be a bit awkward to hear Dave sing this one at first, you embrace it because that’s exactly the point of the song. This is the song I turn on lately when I’m trying to convince myself I have it all under control and I know exactly who I’m gonna be next. It’s such a hype song and I want this hype to carry me into whatever the future holds for me.

Melon and the Coconut

“Sometimes B sides are the best songs, sometimes killing time is very fruitful…”

This is such a silly song at face value but it hits in this delightfully hazy way for the way it speaks to the numbness I’ve felt lately. Dave’s said that this song is about a melon and a coconut but like — I know you’re def recalling some relationship here David. For me, this song is almost directly speaking to this tension I’ve been feeling about doing things that I love versus things that people would expect me to like. To be even more candid, I’ve been feeling like the career in marketing that I started is not as fulfilling as I’d hoped it was. There were times that I loved what I was doing in marketing in my last job specifically, but I remember feeling like at its core, it’s not what I truly enjoy. What I really enjoy is honestly what I’ve done here on the blog: getting to the heart of the healing art that is music and doing what I can to celebrate that. Yes I tend to use this blog to experiment with my skillset, but the main motivation is always “how can I uplift the voices of the artists who are helping me (and others around the world) see things in a new way?”. I just can’t help but feel like this song is making me realize how I need to refocus my career on that. Not ‘can I get a fancy title and power and a big paycheck so I look like I have it together for the rest of my life’. So I guess that makes me both the Melon and the Coconut having this internal dialogue. There’s grief here in letting go of an idea of perfection, or even something that was good. God knows I’ve had to contend with that a lot this year.

Your Love (Dèjá Vu)

“Too far from over you…”

I know I technically already unpacked this song when I was word vomiting about Dave last time. But you do not understand the way my entire being perks up when I hear this song. And I’m glad people are finding this song because it was in an Oura ring commercial. I literally could fall to my knees in front of Dave Bayley, thanking him profusely because of this song alone. (Dave if you’re reading this, I promise I won’t but seriously…your MIND in making this song). I’m such a fan of the way everything is layered here. It’s perfectly intense at all the right moments. The strings punctuate the beat in the most satisfying way. Also I am obsessed with the times that Dave’s higher and lower registers blend. This one is a real showcase of that. The climax of this song at the end is just so good. The strings really serve as this incredible vehicle to turn up the intensity. It’s the kind of song that I could listen to on loop for hours and find new things to fixate on. So sexy of him to make this banger of a song.

Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth

“You fake your shyness, I just wish I could see through you…”

The fact that this song started on Dave’s guitar with that cheeky little riff is just so good. I know I already talked about this one last time but it bears repeating that I’m glad he had the audacity to write this song. He’s basically calling himself out for hiding himself in a relationship. For me lately, this song again goes both ways with me calling myself out and calling out my ex from last year. The lyric “never seen The Price Is Right, I’m a liar, I’ve been on that shit since ’99” makes me laugh because it’s such a niche reference that I totally get. Like actually, the summer when I was like 10 years old, I watched The Price Is Right everyday and I still have a weird fondness towards it. Meanwhile, the lyric about “vape juice, hit undo, how the hell are you so cool?” feels like a direct read of my ex from last year. He had this air of just trying to be cool but I could tell it was a front he was trying to put on. At the same time, if I were to guess what tasting “like surfing videos” was like, he’d be it…and that relationship was definitely “chemical warfare”. It felt a lot like smoke and mirrors at the beginning and the moment it started unraveling scared us both. I’ll unpack that whole thing in its entirety later. But back to David, my beloved. Dave taps into this incredible intensity in this song by seemingly swatting away the smoke and mirrors and it happens through the explosion of the last distorted refrain. Also don’t talk to me about Dave’s little chuckle at the end. It’s so cute and sexy.

It’s All So Incredibly Loud

“Heartbreak was never so loud…”

Please listen to this song with headphones. It is a masterpiece of a song that just invites you into this moment of slowing down anxiety. Dave said he wrote it about the 3 seconds or so before you deliver devastating news — which is just a genius concept for a song. What makes this song so genius is the way it does become so incredibly loud. Like at some point all the layers of this song become audible and you are drawn into the moment. It takes a while to understand the lyrics but once you sit with them, this song reaches the depths Dave intended. I’ve been feeling this song so much lately as I’ve been moving into polishing my music project because the timeline is in motion. I feel a bit insane knowing that these words that I’ve sat on for years will all be out soon and this in between moment feels like this song. It’s exciting but just really intense emotionally for me. I feel like this song is the turning point of the album where everything becomes serious all of a sudden. The album up to this point is full of chaos and songs that kind of get you lost in the beat. But this song slows everything down to deliver some important feelings. This song is still hazy but in the way that you can be uncomfortable with how present you are. It’s an unsettling feeling painted by an incredible song.

Domestic Bliss

“Fight for me, we can leave I’m begging. Please, on my, on my knees…”

Dave has said this song is about one of his earliest memories: seeing a school friend’s mom deal with domestic abuse. He does such a beautiful job of capturing that that childlike confusion of seeing someone going back to that terrible situation and trying to offer a plan out of it as only a kid can. It’s heartbreaking, especially when it gets to the chorus and offers the solution to go to Hawaii – truly the kind of solution only a kid could offer. Admittedly, I didn’t sit enough with this song in 2020/2021 and I don’t think I was at all ready to. Lately, this song has been helping me process some of the generational trauma that I’ve started unpacking in therapy. It specifically has been helping me reinforce what I’ve learned in therapy to reparent myself and how I need to commit to differentiating myself from my parents. I hear the voice of my wounded inner child here who felt like her emotions were too big to deal with. It’s such a comfort to hear that side of me say “fight for me” because adult me has been practicing a new level of self-compassion where she can act on it (more on that later). Sonically, there’s nervous tension to this song, yet it’s so intimate. The beat is subdued in the verses but it really soars with each chorus. Dave really handled this one with care and it makes me think he’s a really gentle human being. I really admire that.

Heat Waves

“Heat waves been faking me out, can’t make you happier now…”

The transition from “Domestic Bliss” to “Heat Waves” honestly hits the deepest parts of my soul. We go from literally a pit of despair to this now iconic bop about grief and it does something really good to my entire being. “Heat Waves” has become a transcendent song because it’s so personal. Dave has said before that this song was the most personal song on the album, so personal he almost didn’t want to release it. He actually almost gave it away. Tbh I don’t think anyone else could do it justice as Dave does it. It’s a song just dripping in all the stages of grief among a sunny beat. You can listen to this song and feel the denial, the sadness, the anger, the bargaining, and the acceptance. And capturing all of that in one song is a FEAT. “Heat Waves” makes space to oscillate through all those stages of grief and I think I’ve definitely been listening to this song differently after all I’ve been feeling this year. Before this year, I would think about this song as just a good vibey track that everyone just seemed to fixate on. But now, it’s been giving me the space to accept that a big chapter of my life is over and it’s time for a new adventure where I’m in the driver’s seat now. It’s such a wonder to hear this song be performed at the end of every Glass Animals set now. It’s the song everyone knows and there’s this pure joy that everyone feels singing it together. I especially see the joy radiating from Dave. I hope he knows he’s kinda changed the world by releasing this song. It’s like he gave the world a big hug after the confusion and pain of the pandemic. And that hug can be accessed every time you listen to this song.

Helium

“Are our foundations destined to keep crumbling?”

Ending the album with the heart wrenching song that is “Helium” is an incredible choice. Like just when you thought you were good to wipe away the tears, Dave hits us with this last drive through Dreamland. This song has definitely helped me process my recent heartbreaks of my ex and leaving my last company. It’s been really hard accepting the reality that those chapters as they were are over and I’ve been struggling to see the future for some time now. I have times where I get excited about what I could do next, but something tugs my heart back to those things as if they were the biggest peak of my life. Even harder has been accepting that I need to move on from those things because the truth is that they were not perfect…as much as I wanted them to be. And “Helium” creates the space for that. This song beckons you to feel your way through the disappointment of endings. Dave said that he was really inspired by The Beatles’s “A Day in the Life” for this song and you can tell by the twists and turns it takes sonically. Like I mentioned in “Tangerine”, this song has these moments where you snap back to reality and it’s disorienting. The musical callback to the “Dreamland” melody in a different key makes my little musical theater kid heart soar. Like wowowow it gives me chills every time. The vocals being more distorted this time around hit like the moment a dream turns into a nightmare that makes you wake up. I still don’t know exactly what he sings but Genius lists the lyrics as “You just want backstreets, you don’t want me. You just gonna hate it all the way…” Which, if those are at least similar to the actual words David, eesh thanks for the reality check. There’s a gentleness throughout this song though and that’s what’s made me keep going back to reinforce the aforementioned endings. Closing the album with baby Dave saying “bye bye” is honestly the sweetest thing ever though. Like what a good reminder that this precious baby boy grew into a genius of a man.

BONUS TRACK: I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)

“Now I know it’s safe to say, nothing’s perfect anyway…”

I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t like this song for the longest time. It felt kind of like a weird vibe shift from the rest of the Dreamland album. But lately it’s been growing on me because I see the link to Dreamland now. This song was released as a single after “Heat Waves” was released and ballooned like it did. And honestly, to hear this one after the super personal stuff in Dreamland feels like “let me try to shake off the fact that I ruined the vibe by going too deep” lol. It’s really relatable in that. I’ve been grooving to this song a lot lately because you can imagine after a year and a half of grieving various endings, I’m tired of being sad and angry and frustrated about this perceived loss of control. I don’t wanna keep talking about these things and I don’t want to continue living in the past. But I can’t help it. I have a lot to process. There’s something really comforting in the fact that I’m allowed to feel that frustration while continuing to process. Also worth mentioning I basically only listened to this song on repeat all Election Day this year. I think it was particularly stuck in my head that day for a reason. Also last thing I’ll say, the fact that they got Albert Hammond Jr. of The Strokes to add a guitar solo for the remix album is so legendary because Glass Animals practiced The Strokes covers when they were starting as a band. What a sick full circle moment.

Anyway, that’s another 4,000+ words about Dave Bayley and co for now. Go listen to Dreamland. Even if you’re not in such a state as I have been in lately, this album is a delight to listen to and hearing all the themes of nostalgia and grief will make you wonder how on earth did Dave Bayley get supernatural knowledge about what would happen in 2020. It’s crazy stuff. Anyway, I’ve got an autumnal recap before I yap one more time about Glass Animals. Talk again soon.