The end of music charts as we knew them...

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Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill,” and the End of Music Charts As We Knew Them


Thanks to ‘Stranger Things,’ one of art pop’s most reclusive figures has almost inadvertently found herself with a top-10 charting hit. Is it a fluke or a sign of the times?

Kate Bush is being born again. It’s the last song of her 1985 masterpiece Hounds of Love—the finale of a seven-song suite titled The Ninth Wave, which tells the story of a castaway in a life jacket drifting through the open ocean. Close to death, the castaway experiences a Christmas Carol–like series of past, present, and future hallucinations before being rescued (or appearing to be, at least). “D’you know what?” she sings on newly appreciative of the people in her life after going through such a harrowing experience. “I love you better now.”

Rebirth has always been central to Bush’s music. A star since she was 19, when her 1978 debut single .) Waiting to see how the next chapter will unfold is part of the appeal of being one of her fans—and part of the challenge.

Old music returning to the charts after a soundtrack feature is not exactly a new phenomenon. In the U.S., Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” charted higher in 1992 (no. 2) than it did in 1976 (no. 9) after Wayne and Garth headbanged to it in Wayne’s World. (Freddie Mercury’s 1991 death also contributed.) Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” didn’t even make the Hot 100 when it was released in 1994, and then shot to no. 1 in 1995 after soundtracking the nipple suits in Batman Forever. But by and large, old music appearing on the charts had been rare. That’s changing—fast.


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https://www.theringer.com/music/2022...llboard-charts