Kate Bush has seen another huge boost in streams following the premiere of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things.
Her 1985 classic track ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ got a new surge of popularity in 2022 when the fourth season of Stranger Things aired. In the hit Netflix series, the track played a significant role in the storyline and helped save the character of Max (Sadie Sink). Streams of the ’80s classic increased by 153 per cent after the song appeared.
Introducing a new generation of fans to her discography, the song went on to reach one billion streams in summer 2023, and Bush thanked fans “for sending this song on such an impossibly astonishing journey”, saying that it left her feeling “blown away”.
Also in 2022, it was reported that Bush had earned $2.3million (£1.9million) in streaming revenue with ”Running Up That Hill’, and the track was among the most streamed songs in the UK – ranking number six in the Top 10 most popular songs on TikTok for 2022.
Now, the first part of Stranger Things season five has been shared and the song features again – leading to Bush getting another boost on streaming platforms.
A post was made on the her Facebook page last night (Thursday November 27), celebrating the ‘80s track surpassing 1.5billion streams on Spotify.
“‘Running Up That Hill’ has today passed the 1.5billion streams milestone on Spotify,” the caption read, sharing a screenshot of the artist page. “It is currently at Number 146 globally on Spotify having featured again in several episodes of Stranger Things season five, the final season, which has just dropped on Netflix.”
Another post was shared, revealing that the single, which featured on the ‘Hounds Of Love’ album, was currently at Number 12 in the iTunes chart “courtesy of season five of Stranger Things“.
At the start of the year, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer shared what it was like to help the song go viral. “You can’t really manufacture it,” Matt said. “The Kate Bush thing, I thought that episode was cool, and I love Kate Bush. But no, I wasn’t expecting it to resonate with Gen Z in a particular way.”
Bush last took to the stage in 2014 when, after a 35 year hiatus from playing live, she announced ‘Before the Dawn’ – a 22-night residency in London.
In October 2024, the pop legend took part in a rare interview and revealed that she has “lots of ideas” for new material.
“I’ve been caught up doing a lot of archive work over the last few years, redesigning our website, putting a lyric book together,” she said. “And I’m very keen to start working on a new album when I’ve got this finished. I’ve got lots of ideas and I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space, it’s been a long time.”
In February this year, she joined Damon Albarn, Annie Lennox and over 1,000 artists in releasing a silent album in protest to AI being used in music and changes to copyright AI laws planned by the UK government.
Since then, Bush has released her album ‘The Best Of The Other Sides’ after huge fan demand, directed an animated short film called Little Shrew, and invited 52 visual artists to create work inspired by ‘Running Up That Hill’. The latter was done for the 2025 Sound & Vision fundraiser, an annual auction where all proceeds were donated to War Child.
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