Farewell to 'Stranger Things,' A Good Music Show

Welcome to the latest edition of All the Music of All the World, our weekly series where we aim to share music worth being passionate about. Consider us a guide who can help you get the most out of your Victrola by giving you new music to listen to, or new ways to think about music you already know. 

This week is Christmas, which is international code for “no one is thinking about anything but family and what presents they did or did not get” and not exactly hot time for a column about music and thinking about said music. But we have an appointment to keep—it’s Friday, and it’s time for All the Music of All the World.

If you’re someone who watches TV, it’s also Stanger Things time. The show set all kinds of records when it came back at Thanksgiving, and it’s probably blowing up Netflix records for the second part of the final season right now as you read this. The third part will be out at New Year’s, and that’s all she wrote on the biggest show on the undeniable monolith of the Streaming Giants. I’m not sure how it’ll end—I’ve been betting on the ending being the main four cast members standing up from the Dungeons & Dragons table and saying “whoa, that was a crazy game” like none of what’s happened was real, and was just a game for the last 4 seasons—but I do know one thing: when it goes away, it’ll be the end of one of the most musically fun shows on TV.

Think of all the biggest shows of the last 10 years. What are their famous musical moments? The National singing “The Rains of Castamere” on Game of Thrones? Did the nerds on Big Bang Theory even listen to any band other than Barenaked Ladies? Reservation Dogs is the best show of the last five years, and its best musical moment was the guy from Incubus playing Jesus. Andor? Sex and the City sequel? Reacher?

Nothing in any show can come remotely close to this moment from Stranger Things:

That’s Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill,” a masterpiece single from Hounds of Love, her masterpiece 1985 album. The song being integral to the plot makes it an incredible music moment, but it broke contain and was the biggest meme sound on TikTok for what felt like YEARS. Following that moment, Bush was able to reissue the album on her own on vinyl, taking control of it from her label thanks to the insane windfall she got from the streams from the album. There hasn’t been anything close to that crossover between music and TV in recent years, except, well, this moment:

Stranger Things introduced Metallica and Kate Bush to a whole new generation, and for that, it might as well be classified as a public service. But those two moments weren’t all: there’s the Diana Ross song in part one of this season, played at the WSQK radio station the characters are running as a PsyOp. The Stray Cats and the Cars in the super horny pool scene from season three. The Clash in season one. The pizza guy getting cooked and delivering to “Pass the Dutchie.”

And that’s to say nothing of the show’s spooky, synthy score by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. Sounding like some hybrid of a nuclear meltdown, a synth demonstration by a scientist, and a Tangerine Dream B-side, the duo is probably the most popular electronic band on earth; the vinyl releases for their scores selling like hotcakes, their music heard by more ears than any band making that kind of music could reasonably hope for otherwise.

As you catch up on the comings and goings in Hawkins this weekend, hopefully there are more musical moments to enjoy. Either way, Stranger Things going away will leave a hole that has very few heirs on the horizon.

--Andrew Winistorfer