Here’s What Kate Bush’s ‘Stranger Things’ Boost Is Worth

With one of the biggest TV placements in years, Kate Bush‘s Stranger Things-featured 1985 smash “Running Up That Hill” has become a top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and also resulted in a huge bump in sales and streams for the rest of her extensive discography. It’s also resulted in her back catalog more than doubling in U.S. revenue generated for the year in just two weeks’ worth of post-synch consumption.

In the first 21 Billboard tracking weeks of the year, the Kate Bush catalog — which is mostly licensed to Warner Music Group for distribution via her label Noble & Brite — was generating nearly 2,000 album consumption units a week; that includes an average of 450 copies in album sales, 240 downloaded songs and a total of 1.145 million streams, according to Luminate. That all adds up to an average U.S. revenue of nearly $12,000 per week, Billboard estimates.

Related

Startup That Wants to Ease the Synch Licensing Process Announces Public Launch

04/16/2024

But in week 22, after “Running Up That Hill” was featured in multiple episodes of Stranger Things‘ just-released fourth season, that exploded to almost 20,000 album consumption units, over 1,000 album sales, and over 20,000 song downloads, while on-demand streaming hit 22.94 million. In that week alone, Billboard estimates revenue increased nearly $157,000 for the Bush catalog. And the following week was even better, with album sales reaching over 2,000 copies, song downloads growing to 25,000 downloads; and streaming hitting almost 39.5 million plays. That brought in another $258,000, Billboard estimates.

All told, in the last two weeks, the Bush catalog has brought in $415,000 in revenue for her U.S. label revenue, while in the first 21 weeks, her catalog’s revenue totaled $248,000. That makes total revenue this year from the Bush catalog at over $661,000, Billboard estimates. Or, in other words, in week 23 of this tracking year alone, the Bush catalog did $10,000 more in U.S. business than the first 21 weeks combined.

“Running Up That Hill” sits at No. 4 this week on the Hot 100 dated June 18, up four spots from its No. 8 re-entry the previous week — and a full 26 places higher than it originally peaked during its first chart run back in 1985.

Meanwhile, the album that includes “Running Up That Hill,” Hounds of Love, bounds from 28-12 on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week, besting its ’85 Billboard 200 peak by 18 spots. Both placements now mark Bush’s highest career rankings on their respective charts.