English singer-songwriter Kate Bush released a track in 1985, only for it to top music charts 37 years later.
63-year-old Bush has garnered legions of new listeners, all thanks to Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’, the show that used her 1985 hit ‘Running Up That Hill’ for the character of Max Mayfield.
The track has also been a hit on social media platforms including Instagram, where 468,000 users have opted for it as the background music for all sorts of clips.
Bush seems to have won the jackpot through the track’s overnight success. According to Luminate, she has earned $2.3 million in streaming royalties since the fourth season of the show dropped last month. It is likely that Bush is keeping the majority of that money all to herself, and rightfully so, as she owns the copyright to her recordings.
On June 17, Bush acknowledged that the resurgence of the track had put it “on top of that hill” and its popularity felt like it was being “driven along by a kind of elemental force.”
“I just can’t believe it – No. 1 for the third week. We’re all so excited! In fact it’s all starting to feel a bit surreal,” she wrote in a blog post.
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“I’ve just watched the last two episodes of Stranger Things and they’re just through the roof. No spoilers here, I promise. I’d only seen the scenes that directly involved the use of the track and so I didn’t know how the story would evolve or build,” she continued, adding that she feels “deeply honoured that the song was chosen to become a part of their roller coaster journey.”
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‘Running Up That Hill’ being brought back from the dead is an unusual twist in the 44 years long career of Bush, who was unable to deliver a top 10 hit in the United States until this year.
Well, better late than never.