Kate Bush is running up those charts after her hit 1985 song "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" has made an appearance in the first episode of Stranger Things' latest season.
The song is featured in a dramatic scene where the character Max (played by Sadie Sink) is walking through her high school hallway, on her way to a counselling session. It also appears in other key scenes, and in another episode in the season, Max and her ex Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) talk about Bush's music.
According to BBC, "Running Up That Hill" has now gone viral on social media and managed to hit #1 on ITunes. It is currently top of Spotify's daily songs chart in the UK - both the Top 200 and Viral 50. It officially reached the peak around two days ago (June 1) and seems to be staying put.
After being widely shared by fans on TikTok and Twitter, "Running Up That Hill" replaced Harry Styles' behemoth single "As It Was" at number one in streaming service's ranking. Globally, Bush's song is #1 on the Viral 50 but is still under Styles' hit on the Top 200. Nontheless, Bush's song has become Spotify's fourth-most streamed song worldwide.
Nora Felder, the show's music supervisor, told Harper's Bazaar how the song became the season's defining anthem. "[Show creators] Matt and Ross Duffer asked me to help brainstorm Max’s special song," she says. "When I landed on 'Running Up That Hill,' it struck me right away. I felt that [its] poignantly expressed themes and powerful melodic flow could align especially well with Max’s story."
What do the fans think about all this? For some die-hard Kate Bush fans, the wave of Stranger Things converts is a hard pill to swallow. BBC mentioned that one fan, who admitted to discovering the track himself due to a cover by rock band Placebo, posted it was "[messed] up kids are finally finding out about Kate Bush through Stranger Things". Others are happy Bush has found new fans from Generation Z. One user posted: "People being sad that Kate Bush is 'going mainstream' (i.e being heard by a new generation of kids) because she's featured on Stranger Things. Weird." Bush herself has not yet made a statement about her song's recent success.
"Running Up That Hill" isn't the first record to receive renewed interest after being shared around on the internet - particularly TikTok. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac's 1977 hit song "Dreams" went viral thanks to Nathan Apodaca from Idaho filming himself skateboarding to the track while drinking cranberry juice. It helped "Dreams" hit its biggest ever week on streaming services - with more than eight million streams in the U.S. in a week.
Bush's atmospheric pop ballad appears in the new series of Stranger Things alongside other retro hits, including Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" and Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". The first half of the season is now available to stream on Netflix, while volume two won't premiere until July 1
Listen to Bush's song in a pivotal scene of Stranger Things below. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Article Image: Kate Bush walking through city streets in 1986, the Stranger Things logo over a black background. (Philip Chappell [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons, Aakansha Trivedi [CC BY 4.0] via Wikimedia Commons )
