As we have reported, Kate’s Running Up That Hill has been used yet again with Kate’s blessing in the newly released fifth and final season of Stranger Things on Netflix. Brief excerpts of the song are heard in three of the four episodes which have so far landed on Netflix on November 28th. Three more episodes will stream on Christmas Day, with a single movie-length series finale on New Years Day.
It has sent Kate’s biggest song rocketing back once again up to the upper reaches of the global streaming and digital download charts over the last week and more. The impact has been remarkable if not quite as seismic as what we saw happen in the Summer of 2022 – but how could we ever expect anything like that phenomenon again?! For one thing, the song finds itself in a global song chart situation chockful of seasonal Christmas hits that take over at this time of year. Also, the song was featured this time round in a more subtle, nostalgic way – not part of the epic action set pieces of Season 4 in 2022.
Mild spoiler clip above – Kate gets a very nice namecheck on Stranger Things But…the numbers of people listening to Running Up That Hill again is nevertheless extraordinary. Kate has re-entered the Billboard Global 200 chart this week at no.58 – that chart compiles streaming, radio play, digital sales and more from the entire planet – truly the world’s most significant chart. She has a new entry in the Official UK Singles Top 40 chart at #37 – making Running Up That Hill a hit single for Kate in her home country…AGAIN! In Ireland, the song has re-entered the Official Singles Top 40 at number 33!
Kate currently has a new entry at #43 on the Spotify Global Weekly Chart – your reminder that that’s the biggest music streaming platform in the world. The track even peaked as high as #39 on the daily Global Spotify chart, even as those Christmas hits started monopolising the Top 50. Kate has now sailed past the 1.5 billion total streams marker on Spotify, averaging almost 2 million streams a day now. Incredible.
Running Up That Hill has performed very well on iTunes, Apple’s prestigious music download marketplace. Since the new episodes landed on November 28th it instantly climbed to the Top Ten in many territories, and hit an incredible peak of #4 worldwide! (see screenshot above) As I write it is still at #13 worldwide on iTunes and reached #1 in places as far apart as India, Hungary, Italy and Argentina! The song has been in the Top Ten most searched for songs on the Shazam app worldwide in recent days – testament to many new listeners discovering the song again through watching the show. We’ll have to wait and see what the Volume 2 episodes and the Stranger Things finale have in store for this extraordinary chapter in the life of this now 40-year old song and album.
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