She’s getting millions.
English singer-songwriter Kate Bush, who was popular in the eighties, made a resurgence. After her 1985 song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” was used in Netflix’s Stranger Things season 4, Bush’s track is topping charts and making her millions.
Stranger Things season 4 premiered on May 27; since then, the song has ranked No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart less than a month later, 37 years after its initial release. In her native UK, the track bagged the number 1 spot.
Raking it in
According to The Sun, Bush is currently raking around £250,000 ($300,000) per week in royalties. She has garnered an estimated $2.3 million from May 27 to June 23.
Bush owns all the recording rights to “Running Up That Hill,” including the licensing, which means the singer gets the entirety of royalties and profits.
“It’s just extraordinary. I mean, it’s such a great series,” the 63-year-old said on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. “I thought that the track would get some attention, but I never imagined that it would be anything like this.”
New fans
“This is a whole new audience who in a lot of cases haven’t heard of me, and I love that,” Bush continued. In addition, the track has been played almost 400 million times on Spotify, an 8,700 percent rise in global streams, per Variety.
Bush is considered one of Britain’s most influential female musicians in the late 20th century, who contributed to the avant-garde music genre of art-rock. She began writing songs when she was 14 years old, and two years later, she was introduced to Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who helped her get a contract with EMI Records.
In her decades-long career, Bush received three Grammy nominations, including Best Music Film—which she lost to The Beatles in 1996.
Banner photo from @katebushmusic on Instagram.
