The past month has been an unprecedentedly prosperous time for Kate Bush, whose 1985 single “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” has become a hit thanks to Stranger Things and so far peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The newfound popularity is nice and it turns out it’s also yielded quite a payday for Bush: CBS News reports that according to data from Luminate, between May 27 (when the first seven episodes of Season 4 premiered) and June 23, Bush has generated $2.3 million in streaming royalties.
Luminate CEO Rob Jonas told CBS, “While we’ve seen a notable increase in catalogue music streams in recent years — with an annual 20-percent growth alone in 2021 — the Kate Bush story has taken the phenomenon to a new level.”
Since the season’s final two episodes were just unveiled on July 1, it’s possible/likely there will be continued interest in Bush’s music. She’s still riding the wave of the current resurgence, in fact: On the new Hot 100 chart dated July 9, “Running Up That Hill” is No. 6, up from No. 9 last week.
As for Bush’s thoughts on the two latest episodes, she recently wrote in a post on her website, “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. I was so delighted that the Duffer Brothers wanted to use RUTH for Max’s totem but now having seen the whole of this last series, I feel deeply honoured that the song was chosen to become a part of their roller coaster journey. I can’t imagine the amount of hard work that’s gone into making something on this scale. I am in awe. They’ve made something really spectacular.”
