Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" quickly shot to the top of the charts after it played a key role in the fourth season of "Stranger Things." [1] Bush herself celebrated the song's newfound popularity by issuing a statement [2] on her website that read, "You might've heard that the first part of the fantastic, gripping new series of 'Stranger Things [3]' has recently been released on Netflix. It features the song, 'Running Up That Hill' which is being given a whole new lease of life by the young fans who love the show—I love it too! Because of this, 'Running Up That Hill' is charting around the world and has entered the UK chart at No. 8. It's all really exciting! Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song. I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July."
The "Stranger Things" team took a careful approach to getting Bush to approve the song's usage. "Kate Bush is selective when it comes to licencing her music and because of that, we made sure to get script pages and footage for her to review so she could see exactly how the song would be used," Wende Crowley, Sony Music Publishing's SVP of creative marketing, told Variety [4].
The song's appearance on the show has garnered Bush a new legion of young fans, but Bush has been iconic for decades. Since she released her debut single "Wuthering Heights" at the age of 18, she has continuously broken artistic boundaries, releasing a total of 10 studio albums, all of which reached the UK Top 10. All the while, the artist has remained reclusive, embarking on only one tour in 1979 and re-emerging [5] a full 35 years later for a residency in London.
Bush began writing songs at the age of 11 and was discovered by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. Her music is lush, surreal, and unabashedly weird, and her repertoire includes everything from anti-war protest songs to explorations of literature, queerness, and much more, making her the perfect artist to represent the "Stranger Things" band of outcasts. Today, her influence can be heard in the work of Björk, Billie Eilish [6], FKA Twigs [7], Outkast, and countless other artists. For any fans of "Running Up That Hill" looking to dive into Kate Bush's body of work, these eight songs are great places to start — and perhaps you'll even find your very own Vecna song among them.
"Hounds of Love" by Kate Bush
Fans of "Running Up That Hill" seeking more of that song's electrifying intensity are in for a treat with "Hounds of Love," the title track from Bush's 1985 classic, which shares "Running Up That Hill"'s internal fire.
"Sunset" by Kate Bush
The song "Sunset" off Bush's 1993 album "Aerial" is less intense than "Hounds of Love" and "Running Up That Hill," but it's a beautifully orchestrated showcase of Bush's one-of-a-kind artistry and a great introduction to the artist's softer, more melodic side.
"Cloudbusting" by Kate Bush
"Cloudbusting" is a motivational track for the ages. The song, also released on "Hounds of Love," features mysterious lyrics such as, "I can't hide you from the government," making it a great candidate for a potential soundtrack to Mike and Eleven's story.
"Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush
"Wuthering Heights" was Bush's breakout single, the debut track from her 1978 album "The Kick Inside." Bush wrote the song at the age of 18, but she was a veteran songwriter by then, having written over 100 songs by the time she was discovered by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour [9] after he heard a demo she recorded at the age of 16. The song made history [10] by becoming the first single written and recorded by a female artist to hit the top of the British charts.
"Breathing" by Kate Bush
"Breathing" is a song off Bush's 1980 album "Never for Ever," featuring backing vocals by Roy Harper. The post-apocalyptic ballad was the lead single from the album, and Bush said [11] it was inspired by a documentary she saw about nuclear war. "I suddenly realised the whole devastation and disgusting arrogance of it all. Trying to destroy something that we've not created – the earth," she said in a 1980 interview [12]. "The only thing we are is a breathing mechanism: everything is breathing. Without it we're just nothing."
"Army Dreamers" by Kate Bush
"Army Dreamers" is sung from the perspective of a mother grieving her adult son who was killed while at war. The song, released in 1980, finds its narrator grappling with guilt about what she could have done.
"This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush
"This Woman's Work" is an emotional piano ballad, originally featured on the soundtrack of the film "She's Having a Baby." It was the second single from Bush's album "The Sensual World" and was released in 1989. The song tells the story of a woman forced to confront some kind of traumatic event during childbirth.
"The Dreaming" by Kate Bush
"The Dreaming" was Bush's first self-produced [13] album, and it's also her most experimental. The album's title single is Bush at her most wonderful and most weird. A relative commercial failure, the album went on to become a beloved fan-favourite.
