Spotify’s monthly active users grew by 19 million this quarter, surpassing its own estimates — but that’s not the only thing that’s running up a hill on the streaming platform.
Spotify said that streams of Kate Bush’s 1985 single “Running Up That Hill” jumped 9,000% after the song was featured prominently in a new episode of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” Netflix and Spotify collaborated on a playlist based on the hit show (which cost over $40 million per episode — yikes!), so it makes sense that Spotify would extoll the virtues of the British star.
But Bush’s resurgence into the mainstream has as much to do with TikTok as it does with Netflix’s costly original series.
“Running Up That Hill” has been featured in 2.7 million TikTok videos, which isn’t to be ignored. This is far from the first time TikTok has propelled older songs back onto the charts, like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” or The Mountain Goats’ “This Year.”
Bush previously released a statement about the resurgence in popularity for her song (from Billboard):
I’ve just watched the last two episodes of Stranger Things and they’re just through the roof. I was so delighted that the Duffer Brothers wanted to use [“Running Up That Hill”] 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 part of their roller coaster journey. … I am in awe. They’ve made something really spectacular.
