A beginner's guide to Kate Bush — for everyone who just watched Stranger Things
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 4.
Music has the power to shape our lives. But can it save us? That's the question at the heart of episode 4 of the new season of Stranger Things.
In a ghastly, nail-biting sequence — one of the show's scariest to date — Max (Sadie Sink) faces off against Hawkins' latest villain: Vecna, a sinister dream-demon-wizard dude who's badly disfigured and perpetually pissed off. His nasty shtick? He preys on teenagers' guilt and shame, pulling them into a nightmarish trance and using their worst fears and insecurities to destroy them. The good news? His victims can come to their senses and vanquish him — but only with the help of a seriously killer tune.
Enter Kate Bush, the British alt-pop diva whose 1980s classic "Running Up That Hill" has been getting Max through some dark times since her step-brother Billy (Dacre Montgomery) died. It's no surprise Max is drawn to one of music's most beloved heroines, a proud and defiant outsider whose influence is wide and deep. When Bush burst onto the scene in the late-'70s at the age of 19, she, like Max, marched to the beat of her own drum. She was, and always has been, immune to trends, undeterred by rules, and unburdened by expectations. Max is a tough, precocious skater girl who can pick locks and drive a car. Bush is a tough, loopy chanteuse who's barked like a dog in a song and written about getting it on with a snowman. These ladies do not care.
Netflix; ZIK Images/United Archives via Getty Images Max (Sadie Sink) in 'Stranger Things' season 4; Kate Bush
Given her high-concept videos and the eccentric subject matter of her music (topics include Stephen King's The Shining, the mathematical constant π, and laundry as foreplay), Bush has achieved cult-icon status in the U.S. But if she's never won a Grammy, had only one top 40 single ("Running Up That Hill"), and been snubbed three times by the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame, countless artists owe a debt to her: Prince, Björk, Florence Welch, St. Vincent, Tori Amos, Bat for Lashes, Joanna Newsom, Perfume Genius, Marina, Lady Gaga — basically anyone who wears their weirdness like a badge of honor (even Outkast's Big Boi is obsessed). Meanwhile, she's a national treasure in the U.K., where she's racked up 25 top 40 singles, including her debut, 1978's "Wuthering Heights," which made her the first female artist to hit No. 1 with a self-written song.
That track and "Running Up That Hill," the latter of which kicks off her lauded 1985 album, Hounds of Love, are Bush's most famous songs, and while they hint at the breadth of her talent and imagination, they only scratch the surface. Diving into her catalog means leaving reality far, far behind, which explains why Max, lost and shattered with grief, straps on her headphones and revisits "Running Up That Hill" again and again, hoping that by surrendering herself to this goddess' mysterious world — a world of massive tribal beats and haunting synthesizers where love roars like thunder — she will somehow, ironically, find her way back home.
That's exactly what happens at the end of season 4's fourth episode. In an attempt to snap Max out of her fugue state, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and the rest of her loyal friends arm her with her headphones and pop her Hounds of Love cassette into her Walkman. Her favorite song has been a source of comfort, but, more important, a source of strength. Only it can save her from Vecna, the terrifying manifestation of her confusion and pain.
Once Max has escaped, the crew realizes the only way to keep her from Vecna's clutches is to play her "Running Up That Hill" on loop. It's a risky plan. What if she gets sick of the song?
"Will it still work?" Max asks Lucas in the next episode. "Or will Kate Bush lose her magic power or something?"
Lucas' reply couldn't be more accurate. "Kate Bush? Never."
Still curious? Listen to our very abridged playlist of some of Bush's best songs below. You'd be hard-pressed to find stranger, more magical things in pop music.
The first volume of Stranger Things season 4 is streaming now on Netflix. Read our full recap of Stranger Things season 4.
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