How to Be a Human Being by Glass Animals

How to Be a Human Being, Glass Animals' second album, came out on 26 August 2016, on Harvest in America, and it turns the band's woozy grooves into a crowd scene. Every one of its eleven songs belongs to one of the characters lined up on the front cover, each track a little short story told from inside a stranger's head. Dave Bayley sings and writes them, with Drew MacFarlane, Edmund Irwin-Singer and Joe Seaward, the Oxford four-piece that started out in 2010, building wobbly, rubbery rhythms underneath.

"Life Itself" was the one radio grabbed, all twitchy beat and sticky hook. Reviewers were mostly charmed, even if a few thought the band had hurried it out, and the album made the 2017 Mercury Prize shortlist before taking UK Album of the Year and Self Producing Artist of the Year at the 2018 MPG Awards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.