A song more than 30 years old, a prominent placement in a popular series and millions upon millions of streams on Spotify and Co: The recent success of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" (originally released in 1985) following the new "Stranger Things" season on Netflix is ​​a prime example of the possibilities that streaming offers for works that are decades old.

Especially when everything comes together – as in this case.

Benjamin Fisher

Editor in Business.

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"Running Up That Hill" was streamed more than 48 million times in just one week on market leader Spotify - other services and any record sales and downloads also have an impact, of course.

It is by no means the first song to become a super hit (again) thanks to a good placement.

Some of the works run in commercials, some in cinema films or they are broadcast on the streaming services through a hype on Tiktok.

Chart rules prevent first place

The Fleetwood Mac song "Dreams" (released in 1977) had recently experienced a second spring via the enormously popular video network.

Most of the time, the renewed enthusiasm for a song also helps the rest of an artist's repertoire to get more streams.

The music industry is only too happy to use Tiktok to market new songs.

Musicians with momentum on Tiktok are sometimes signed directly.

Whether a song will ultimately be popular on Tiktok can of course only be planned to a very limited extent, although the marketing teams are busy using the platform.

With a view to the pure placement in potential top productions, things look different.

The competition here is fierce and the business is lucrative.

All major music companies, as well as many smaller ones, have synch teams to best accommodate songs from their house.

Meanwhile, the Bush case also reveals how complicated the world of the charts, which seems so simple, can sometimes be.

Because "Running Up That Hill" only reached number one in the single charts in Bush's home country Great Britain at the end of last week.

The reason: a peculiarity of the British charts.

Harry Styles ousted

In contrast to the German counterpart, they are calculated according to "sold" units, while in Germany the turnover counts.

100 premium streams (or 600 streams from a user of an advertising-financed free version) are counted in this system as, for example, a download of the song or the sale of a physical single.

In order to prevent works from being in the charts for too long and new music being left behind in this sense, according to the British chart rules, 200 or 1200 streams are required for a unit from a certain time.

It didn't matter that "Running Up That Hill" was in the charts for some time more than 30 years ago.

The rule was now suspended for the song last week at the request of Bush's label partner Warner Music - a procedure provided for in the rules - and "Running Up That Hill" sits ahead of Harry Styles' "As It Was".

According to British industry media, it would have been enough for first place the week before based on the pure streaming numbers with the same rating.

The song is currently number 4 in the sales-based official German charts.

Who owns the rights to the hit?

Today, old works are constantly bringing in money through streaming, which is particularly worthwhile for the large music companies with their huge catalogs of rights.

Some songs only make a few euros a month (if at all), others far more, especially when they are given new life "from outside".

In the past, income naturally only accrued once, namely when you bought a CD or record.

In streaming, it is a tiny amount with each new call, which ideally will sooner or later turn into a proud sum.

Last but not least, this aspect and the prospect of further growth in the streaming market makes rights to works that are once established and heard over and over again attractive for financial investors as well.

KKR, Apollo Global Management and Blackstone alone have provided billions of dollars for the purchase of rights in recent months and some have already purchased catalogues.

Warner and Sony Music are also happy

However, no player from the financial world is benefiting from the recent success of “Running Up That Hil”.

In fact, two top dogs from the music industry probably only make a comparatively limited contribution to the second life of the song.

Kate Bush apparently now owns the rights to the recordings (and probably also to the text and compositions).

The industry site “Music Business Worldwide” first came across it: According to Spotify, the rights to the album on which the song appeared (“Hounds Of Love”) belong to Noble & Brite Limited – a company owned by the 63-year-old musician.

Conveniently, she wrote and produced the song entirely on her own.

Warner Music is on board as a distribution partner for the publication, while Sony's publishing division is responsible for the administration and marketing of the texts and compositions.

In this constellation, however, the bulk of the income should go to Bush herself, who is apparently a "Stranger Things" fan herself.

As Sony Music Publishing manager Wende Crowley explained to Variety, Bush is quite reluctant when it comes to licensing her songs.

In any case, she will hardly regret the okay for "Stranger Things".