Kate Bush scoring an unexpected hit with a 37-year-old song? Stranger things, if you can excuse the pun, have happened, but not many. Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God), which first reached number three in the UK in 1985, suddenly shot to the top of the iTunes charts in the UK and US after appearing in the Netflix series Stranger Things. It also reached No. 4 on the Spotify Top 200 chart – after a 153% increase in streams – and the Stranger Things effect means it’s now the artist‘s most streamed track, overturning the hallowed. The Wuthering Heights.

Stranger Things – a supernatural/sci-fi horror set in the fictional 1980s town of Hawkins, Indiana – is a particular hit with Gen Z ages 10-25, exposing our vulnerable youth in all ways of sonic and visual nostalgia, from vintage pop to mullet cuts.

Running Up That Hill – from Bush’s classic album, Hounds Of Love – debuted in the season four premiere. He starred on character Max Mayfield’s (Sadie Sink) Walkman, a skateboard loner and one of the show’s main teenage bands, and reappears in other key scenes. The character – mourning his half-brother, Billy – faces death in a subconscious hell at the hands (or rather, the tentacles) of the murderous demon Vecna, who preys on troubled teenagers, before Max’s friends save her by streaming her favorite song through her headphones. . The lyrics of Running Up The Hill – “If only I could make a deal with God, I’d make him switch places” – resonate with Max’s guilt over Billy’s death, illustrating the power of music as therapeutic revival force.

It’s not the first time an old hunk has enjoyed a surprise Indian summer after starring in Stranger Things. Limahl’s theme music for The NeverEnding Story enjoyed a 800% increase in YouTube searches after they appeared in Season 3which the former Kajagoogoo frontman told Entertainment Weekly he was “very touched” by his resurgence.

Could other songs appearing in season four benefit from this Stranger Things effect? Keep your eyes on Dead Or Alive You make me spin (like a record)Talking heads’ psycho killerMusical Youth Pass the Dutchie and the wonderfully titled cult classic of the Cramps, I was a teenage werewolf discover.