Photo Credit: Raph_PH / CC by 2.0
Following the Stranger Things-driven commercial resurgence of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” (1985), Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” (1986) is attracting new listeners of its own after appearing in the Netflix series.
Early last month, Kate Bush addressed her song’s Stranger Things placement in a rare public statement, thanking the show’s dedicated fans for their interest in the decades-old release. Said interest has enabled Bush to break multiple chart records in her home country and enter the U.S. top 10 for the first time.
Moreover, the 63-year-old boasts 43.05 million monthly listeners on Spotify (an increase of approximately 10 million from about two weeks ago) at the moment, with “Running Up That Hill” having swelled from 265 million on-platform plays to 357.73 million total streams during the past 16 or so days.
Now, as mentioned at the outset, Metallica is likewise seeing a nearly 40-year-old track, “Master of Puppets,” make waves after a placement in Stranger Things, the fourth and newest season of which has generated north of 1.15 billion hours’ worth of cumulative viewership time to date.
Metallica just recently commented on the placement in an Instagram post, which has racked up 3.34 million likes and received all manner of supportive responses from fans. (The second part of Stranger Things’ fourth season, including the scene with “Master of Puppets,” only debuted last Friday, July 1st.)
“The way The Duffer Brothers [the program’s creators, writers, and directors] have incorporated music into Stranger Things has always been next level, so we were beyond psyched for them to not only include ‘Master of Puppets’ in the show, but to have such a pivotal scene built around it,” wrote the Metallica members, who have 21.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify as well as 430.88 million streams for “Master of Puppets.”
“We were all stoked to see the final result and when we did we were totally blown away… it’s so extremely well done, so much so, that some folks were able to guess the song just by seeing a few seconds of Joseph Quinn’s hands in the trailer!! How crazy cool is that?
“It’s an incredible honor to be such a big part of Eddie’s journey and to once again be keeping company with all of the other amazing artists featured in the show,” the group concluded.
In a further testament to the impact of the placement (besides the associated paycheck, of course), “Master of Puppets” is currently ranked seventh on Spotify’s Top 50 – USA playlist, with 824,534 plays on the day. This marks the first time that the song has cracked the playlist’s top 10.
Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” is still commanding the uppermost spot (1.70 million streams during the period), however, and it’ll be interesting to see whether “Master of Puppets” can supplant the work in the coming days and weeks. Longer term, given the far-reaching commercial benefits of other catalog songs’ sync successes (including social-media trends), the points could play an increasingly significant role in placement negotiations.