The chart success of first Kate Bush and now Metallica thanks to ‘syncs’ in Stranger Things shows how TV shows and TikTok are increasingly crucial for heritage acts
The impact of Running Up That Hill being used in Stranger Things was so great and so unprecedented that even Kate Bush was taken aback, calling it “quite shocking really” in a rare interview with BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour. The song’s placement in the gigantically popular Netflix show gave Bush her first UK No 1 in 44 years and first ever US Top 10 hit, 37 years after Running Up That Hill was first released.
“We’ll be hearing about it for the next 10 years at least, in terms of a reference point in marketing meetings,” says Jonathan Palmer of record label and music publisher BMG, about what will inevitably be called the Stranger Things effect.
