Netflix's Stranger Things propels Kate Bush to iTunes No. 1 after almost 40 years

Netflix Stranger Things Artwork
Netflix Stranger Things Artwork (Image credit: Netflix)

What you need to know

  • Netflix show Stranger Things has brought a 1985 song back from the dead.
  • Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) by Kate Bush features prominently in the new Stranger Things season.
  • The song is now sitting pretty at number one on the iTunes chart.

Netflix might be in the middle of a sticky patch thanks to recent subscriber losses, but it still knows how to make a number one. The latest season of Stranger Things is now streaming and the show's decision to use one particular Kate Bush song has seen it jump to the top of the iTunes charts a massive 37 years after it was first released.

The song, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God), plays a huge part in one particular episode of the Netflix show's fourth season and continues to be heard throughout. That, it seems, was enough to propel it to the top of the iTunes charts — beating out Lady Gaga and Harry Styles in the process.

Netflix is currently reeling from a loss of 200,000 subscribers during the first quarter of 2022 and is already planning a new ad-based subscription tier in an effort to deal with the plethora of cheaper streaming alternatives that are eating its lunch. While smash hit shows like Stranger Things do make it a must-have service for many, one show does not a business model make. Even if that show is so popular that it's capable of resurrecting a song from 1985.

As for Stranger Things, the fourth season is now on a mid-season break and will return for its conclusion in July.

If you want to enjoy Stranger Things in style, be sure to check out our list of the best Apple TV deals on the market today. Want to listen to that Kate Bush song? It's embedded above and can be streamed via Apple Music and Spotify, of course.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.