Because the story of End of Beginning is currently unfolding in three phases. The first is its discreet birth. The second, an exciting adolescence in May 2024, turned into a viral TikTok anthem to accompany hundreds of videos about travels. The Chinese social network made the verse And when I return to Chicago, I feel it / Another version of me, I was living it its soundtrack for a few weeks, and the song started climbing the digital platforms' charts. And the third, after circulating on those charts, a sparkling maturity to which it unexpectedly returned with the end of Stranger Things.
The song did not appear in any of the last episodes of the controversial -oh, the conspiracy theory- Netflix series finale. But fans have decided to massively listen to it again. As if the nostalgia of the song allowed them to revel in the feeling that they will not meet those kids who face evil in Hawkins, Indiana again. The fact is that End of Beginning has reached the top of the UK charts more than three years after its release, dethroning Taylor Swift and her Fate of Ophelia from the top of Spotify's Global Top 50 and has surpassed 2 billion streams. Now it remains to be seen how far I Just Might, the preview of Bruno Mars' new album, The Romantic, which will be released in a few weeks, can climb.
But for now, there is Djo -or Joe Keery- with his End of Beginning. Once again demonstrating the bond between Stranger Things fans and the music charts. In 2022, no one remembered Kate Bush, who had been missing since 2011, with her success associated with the 80s. It was her appearance in the fourth season of the Duffer Brothers' series with her song Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) - crucial to the plot of the fiction, by the way - that started the British singer breaking records: number one on the UK charts with a song that had never been there, top 5 in the US that she had never come close to, the oldest woman to achieve a top 1 on the charts...
That fourth season of the 80s fiction also revived Master of Puppets, one of Metallica's classics. The scene where Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), during his Upside Down adventure, recreates the iconic guitar solo made the song enter several rock charts and appear on Billboard's Hot 100, the US's main hit indicator.
And, the Duffer Brothers still had a surprise for the series' final episode, which was released on New Year's: Purple Rain by Prince, which still remains in Spotify's Global Top 50 after appearing in the Netflix series. According to Variety, citing Spotify, streams of the song have increased by 243%. And those of When Doves Cry, also featured in that episode, increased by 200%. What's surprising is that they could use them because the singer's heirs are reluctant to allow the use of his music. To the extent that they have filed several lawsuits for unauthorized use of Purple Rain and also complained when Donald Trump used the song at a political rally in 2019.