Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2.Thanks to its pitch-perfect placementin episode 4 ofStranger ThingsSeason 4, Kate Bush’s haunting, propulsive single “Running Up That Hill” is a worldwide hit, a mere 37 years after its release. Always a brilliant track, and long considered a classic, the song that opens Bush’s masterworkHounds of Love, istopping charts,making the singer millions, andbreaking records. Its success has even inspiredSpotify to create personalized Upside Down Playliststo help you find your own best song to fend off Vecna. Bush is, characteristically,surprised but grateful.
While it’s unlikely the epic, tragicappearance ofMetallica’s “Master of Puppets” in the season finalewill be a repeat of this wild, viral moment, it all shows again how the right song at the right moment can move both viewers and album sales.
But don’t go expectingStranger Thingsto go around minting new chart-toppers in Season 5. Speaking to series creatorsMattandRoss Duffer, Collider’sSteve Weintraubfound out that the producers had not only never anticipated the world’s reaction to “Running Up That Hill” but aren’t planning on attempting to repeat that success, either.
Beyond ‘Stranger Things,’ 10 Times “Running Up That Hill” Made TV Dramatic
“‘The ‘Running up that Hill,’ the Kate Bush thing, [is] so bizarre,” saidMatt Duffer. “I’m not on TikTok, but people are like, ‘Oh, it’s all over TikTok!’ I don’t even really understand what that means, but it’s just bizarre how that stuff happens.” No one does, really, and, yes, it’s somewhat bizarre that an English art-rock treasure notched her first number-1 single thanks to a retro-horror series that is viewable only through technology only half as old as her career. Still, it’s a stroke of internet-era luck any musician would welcome.
