Kate Bush's Net Worth In 2023 Is Largely Thanks to 'Stranger Things' and Business Savvy
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Kate Bush's net worth in 2023 isn't just from her decades as a pop auteur—it's also largely thanks to her business smarts.
The British singer and songwriter has been dubbed the "Queen of Art-Pop" (sorry, Lady Gaga!), and thanks to her recent resurgence, is finally being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Bush has had two singles re-popularized in the 2020s thanks to Netflix: "Running Up That Hill" being Max's favorite song in Stranger Things Season 4 and "This Woman's Work" being featured in the film The Mother.
Find out Kate Bush's net worth and how she made it and became a music legend.
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How did Kate Bush become famous?
Born July 30, 1958 to an Irish dancer and a pianist, with brothers who were artists, poets and instrument-makers, Bush has art-pop in her blood. She taught herself how to play piano when she was 11 years old, then expanded to the organ and violin, and started writing her own music as a teen.
While attending a girls' school when she was a teenager, Bush recorded a demo tape with her family's help and tried shopping it to labels. It didn't take off, but Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour got a copy of it from a mutual friend and took Bush under his wing. Gilmour helped Bush, then 16, make a more professional demo of three songs, even paying for the studio sessions out of his own pocket. They worked with producer Andrew Powell, who would go on to produce Bush's first two albums once she got signed to EMI Records.
Though she got signed to EMI in 1975, she was tabled for two years, recording her debut, The Kick Inside in August 1977. The album was released in February 1978, and her debut single "Wuthering Heights"—which she urged the label to release over "James and the Cold Gun"—was a hit.
The Kick Inside sold more than 1 million copies in the U.K. alone, and Bush made history as the first British female artist to hit No. 1 with a song she wrote herself, as well as the first female artist to write every song on a platinum-selling album.
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What is Kate Bush's net worth in 2023?
Kate Bush's net worth in 2023 is estimated at about $40 million.
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Does Kate Bush get royalties?
Yes, she does. Bush owns the rights to her music, which not every artist does or even has the option to do, and that allows her to make money from royalties whenever her music is purchased, streamed or used in media.
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How much money has Kate Bush made off of her song?
If, by "her song," you mean "Running Up That Hill," Fortune reports she made a whopping $2.3 million from it just since Stranger Things Season 4 premiered in 2022—and likely much more since that report, which was published in July of that year.
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How much does Kate Bush make from "Running Up That Hill?"
Estimates of Bush's income just from "Running Up That Hill" since 2022 range from the aforementioned $2.3 million to $3.75 million—and counting. The song was first released in 1985, and she's reportedly made about $309,000 weekly from the track since it was featured in Stranger Things.
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Does Kate Bush own all the rights to her songs?
Bush does, in fact, own the all the rights to her songs. It's a big reason why she makes so much money whenever her songs are re-popularized in movies and TV shows!
