NouveauDance said:

This is the only place I've read about this, so I can't say its penetration has been anywhere near the Kate Bush track.

KAte Bush shot to number 1, this will be foprgotten in a few days. Especially because most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible, and I agree.

JorisE73 said:

NouveauDance said:

This is the only place I've read about this, so I can't say its penetration has been anywhere near the Kate Bush track.

KAte Bush shot to number 1, this will be foprgotten in a few days. Especially because most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible, and I agree.

I've never seen a more negative fanbase, this is sad, it's almost as if you WANT it to be forgotten.

No wonder Prince dragged y'all.

paisleyparkgirl said:

JorisE73 said:

KAte Bush shot to number 1, this will be foprgotten in a few days. Especially because most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible, and I agree.

I've never seen a more negative fanbase, this is sad, it's almost as if you WANT it to be forgotten.

No wonder Prince dragged y'all.

YUP!

paisleyparkgirl said:

JorisE73 said:

KAte Bush shot to number 1, this will be foprgotten in a few days. Especially because most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible, and I agree.

I've never seen a more negative fanbase, this is sad, it's almost as if you WANT it to be forgotten.

No wonder Prince dragged y'all.

It's not negative, that's just what you want to see it seems. It's just what the concensus is after reading all the ghate towards this last season and I agree, it's a lame season with a extremely lame ending.
I think it's great Prince is finally getting some exposure and this is the one of the most watched shows from the last decade so at kleast that is great. But given the fact most hardcore fans of the show don't like it I don't expect the tracks or the album to do much in a few days or maybe weeks, especially not like Kate Bush's song did. Kate Bush wass in a highy popular season, maybe even the most popular season of the show and the fans made that track happen again, I don't hear much from the fans of the show regarding WDC and PR and how ot blew up the upside down other than that it was a lame showdown and it seems that overshadows the use of the tracks.

ShellyMcG said:

I'm more critical of the estate than most but what more would you realistically expect them to do?

I don't know, release something? Put out a track to generate interest amongst longtime fans and perhaps hook new fans into something beyond just Purple Rain itself?

These guys are self-proclaimed business geniuses and yet they're completely dropping the ball on the biggest promotional boost they've had in the last three years. I don't know how anyone could possibly argue otherwise at this point.

TrivialPursuit said:

I may have missed this, but apparently there was a Prince poster in a shot as well.

The cool thing about this, and the music, is the Duffer brothers love of all things 80s. The easter eggs in the first season alone were immense and so fun to try and spot. Their song choices throughout all five seasons were spot on, too. The fact that Prince was in the mix, and in such a significant want to the story, in that final episode was just perfect.

This was from season 3 or 4 not from the last season, great forshadowing tho and I wonder who made the decision to use the album because Steve and Robin were both arguing whihc album to use and she even suggested The Replacements thay I thought was great.

paisleyparkgirl said:

bozojones said:

JorisE73 said:

NouveauDance said:

This is the only place I've read about this, so I can't say its penetration has been anywhere near the Kate Bush track.

KAte Bush shot to number 1, this will be foprgotten in a few days. Especially because most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible, and I agree.

There is so much needless and ignorant negativity in this post.

First and foremost, anyone should temper expectations that Prince's music featuring in the finale would duplicate the trajectory of "Running Up That Hill". As a plot device, nothing tops the use of "Running Up That Hill". However, "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry" are still doing well, and far better than most featured songs in the show. "Purple Rain" just had its best day on Spotify ever with 2,046,761 streams. That's today's update, several days afer the finale aired. It's been in the top 20 on Spotify for the US and the UK for 3 days in a row. This puts it on track to be perhaps the second best chart boost ever for a song in the show.

On top of that, Prince's catalogue on Spotify is still well outpacing prior averages. Songs like "Kiss", "1999", "I Wanna Be Your Lover", and "Little Red Corvette" are still up 20-40% beyond their prior averages. The effect for songs on Purple Rain like "Let's Go Crazy" and "I Would Die 4 U" is even higher.

Time will tell how long the bump lasts, but it hasn't been forgotten "in a few days".

It's also nonsense to say "most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible". The IMDB episode averages across the seasons:

Season 1: 8.79
Season 2: 8.41
Season 3: 8.48
Season 4: 8.68
Season 5: 7.94

Certainly it has the lowest average, but its reception is far better than "beyond horrible" to "most fans". The finale itself is at 7.7, which isn't great, but it's notably better than the final Game of Thrones episode (4.0) or the final Squid Game episode (6.7).

Here's some YouTube data for the top 10 most viewed Prince videos from Kworb:

When Doves Cry (edit): 83,256 yesterday vs 41,613 average December 2025: 100.1% increase
Kiss: 28,872 yesterday vs 24,839 average December 2025: 16.2% increase
Raspberry Beret: 20,664 yesterday vs 18,710 average December 2025: 10.4% increase
Purple Rain (live): 33,336 yesterday vs 23,871 average December 2025: 39.7% increase
Little Red Corvette: 18,768 yesterday vs 15,161 average December 2025: 23.8% increase
1999: 12,360 yesterday vs 10,323 average December 2025: 19.7% increase
Let's Go Crazy: 13,680 yesterday vs 8,710 average December 2025: 57.1% increase
U Got the Look: 7,152 yesterday vs 6,419 average December 2025: 11.4% increase
When Doves Cry (extended): 6,624 yesterday vs 5,097 average December 2025: 30.0% increase
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: 14,712 yesterday vs 13,226 average December 2025: 11.2% increase

There's also the new video the estate put out for "Purple Rain" on New Year's, which has already logged 824,000 views in less than 6 days. These totals are much more modest than Spotify plays, and the percentage boosts are also a bit less, but it is consistent with the pattern that the appearance in Stranger Things has led to a surge not only in the two included tracks, but also Prince's wider catalogue, particularly other songs and videos from Purple Rain.

Moonbeam said:

It's also nonsense to say "most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible". The IMDB episode averages across the seasons:

Season 1: 8.79
Season 2: 8.41
Season 3: 8.48
Season 4: 8.68
Season 5: 7.94

Certainly it has the lowest average, but its reception is far better than "beyond horrible" to "most fans". The finale itself is at 7.7, which isn't great, but it's notably better than the final Game of Thrones episode (4.0) or the final Squid Game episode (6.7).

With those ratings, you also need to take into account that there was almost certainly some review-bombing of episode 7 that dragged that number down artificially. Whenever there's something LGBTQ-related, the trolls always come out in force to give it a smackdown.

Moonbeam said:

JorisE73 said:

KAte Bush shot to number 1, this will be foprgotten in a few days. Especially because most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible, and I agree.

There is so much needless and ignorant negativity in this post.

First and foremost, anyone should temper expectations that Prince's music featuring in the finale would duplicate the trajectory of "Running Up That Hill". As a plot device, nothing tops the use of "Running Up That Hill". However, "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry" are still doing well, and far better than most featured songs in the show. "Purple Rain" just had its best day on Spotify ever with 2,046,761 streams. That's today's update, several days afer the finale aired. It's been in the top 20 on Spotify for the US and the UK for 3 days in a row. This puts it on track to be perhaps the second best chart boost ever for a song in the show.

On top of that, Prince's catalogue on Spotify is still well outpacing prior averages. Songs like "Kiss", "1999", "I Wanna Be Your Lover", and "Little Red Corvette" are still up 20-40% beyond their prior averages. The effect for songs on Purple Rain like "Let's Go Crazy" and "I Would Die 4 U" is even higher.

Time will tell how long the bump lasts, but it hasn't been forgotten "in a few days".

It's also nonsense to say "most fans of the show think this season is beyond horrible". The IMDB episode averages across the seasons:

Season 1: 8.79
Season 2: 8.41
Season 3: 8.48
Season 4: 8.68
Season 5: 7.94

Certainly it has the lowest average, but its reception is far better than "beyond horrible" to "most fans". The finale itself is at 7.7, which isn't great, but it's notably better than the final Game of Thrones episode (4.0) or the final Squid Game episode (6.7).

Your IMDB stats don't mean anything. As if every fan of teh show puts there vote in and Homophobes review bombed alot of sites that eventually the last few days removed those negative reviews because of the homophobia. MOst people are on reddit or othewr forums dedicated to the show and there it's obvious most people have not mujch good to say about the season and they don't even mention or care about the two tracks used, it's only Prince fans who seem to care. Teh sudden bump on streaming for the tracks in temporary and honestly I don't see them doing number that Kate Bush did and why compare it to a completely different show endings, that just doesn't mean anything, there are a load of shows with higher ratings for the final episodes which also doesn't mean anything.

JorisE73 said:

ShellyMcG said:

JorisE73 said:

Your IMDB stats don't mean anything. As if every fan of teh show puts there vote in and Homophobes review bombed alot of sites that eventually the last few days removed those negative reviews because of the homophobia. MOst people are on reddit or othewr forums dedicated to the show and there it's obvious most people have not mujch good to say about the season and they don't even mention or care about the two tracks used, it's only Prince fans who seem to care. Teh sudden bump on streaming for the tracks in temporary and honestly I don't see them doing number that Kate Bush did and why compare it to a completely different show endings, that just doesn't mean anything, there are a load of shows with higher ratings for the final episodes which also doesn't mean anything.

If the IMDB stats don't mean anything because it's not a true reflection of EVERYONE who watched it then surely your Reddit stats don't mean anything either for the same reason . I liked it. I actually don't know anyone in real life who didn't like it. I have seen some of the comments you're referring to on Reddit though but that's mostly just the chronically online doing what they do best, complaining about everything and being overly negative so as to appear "edgy" or "cool". Was the finale perfect? No. Of course not. I'd argue that the show peaked in Season 1 and never really reached those highs again. But it was fine. Not great like the super fans would have you believe. And not terrible as the trolls claim. I would say 7/10 is a pretty accurate score. And yeah, maybe the sudden increase in Prince interest is temporary. So what? The show has still introduced an entire generation to Prince and I can't see how that's a bad thing. Sure, it doesn't mean anything to us existing fans and we may not benefit from it but we're no worse off than we were before so again, I don't understand the negativity around this from some fans.

I don't know anyone in real live who wasn't disappointed by this season and the ending excwept my 13 year old daughter.
And if people who don't like it are labeled 'edgy' and 'cool' (somehing proabbly only kids or mentally challenged people think) then what do we label the overly fawning 'we love it because whatever reason' fans?
Like i said in my previous post, I love the fact that Prince is getting the exposure, so I still don't understand why people are whining about me being negative because obviously I'm not. I don't care for the show and only watched it for my 13 year old becaue she loved it, but I thikjn it's great Prince is getting exposure in one of the most watched shows in a while even though nobody cares for the two tracks being used and aren't discussing it except for a bunch of Princefans.
I hoped for more discussion and interest (like with Kate Bush) on the tracks and that they were being used as the ultimate weapon to destroy the baddy from non-fans, but it's only Princefans discussing it and caring.

[Edited 1/7/26 11:05am]

JorisE73 said:

JorisE73 said:

ShellyMcG said:

JorisE73 said:

Your IMDB stats don't mean anything. As if every fan of teh show puts there vote in and Homophobes review bombed alot of sites that eventually the last few days removed those negative reviews because of the homophobia. MOst people are on reddit or othewr forums dedicated to the show and there it's obvious most people have not mujch good to say about the season and they don't even mention or care about the two tracks used, it's only Prince fans who seem to care. Teh sudden bump on streaming for the tracks in temporary and honestly I don't see them doing number that Kate Bush did and why compare it to a completely different show endings, that just doesn't mean anything, there are a load of shows with higher ratings for the final episodes which also doesn't mean anything.

If the IMDB stats don't mean anything because it's not a true reflection of EVERYONE who watched it then surely your Reddit stats don't mean anything either for the same reason . I liked it. I actually don't know anyone in real life who didn't like it. I have seen some of the comments you're referring to on Reddit though but that's mostly just the chronically online doing what they do best, complaining about everything and being overly negative so as to appear "edgy" or "cool". Was the finale perfect? No. Of course not. I'd argue that the show peaked in Season 1 and never really reached those highs again. But it was fine. Not great like the super fans would have you believe. And not terrible as the trolls claim. I would say 7/10 is a pretty accurate score. And yeah, maybe the sudden increase in Prince interest is temporary. So what? The show has still introduced an entire generation to Prince and I can't see how that's a bad thing. Sure, it doesn't mean anything to us existing fans and we may not benefit from it but we're no worse off than we were before so again, I don't understand the negativity around this from some fans.

Yeah, I liked it, as imperfect as it was. They really stuck the landing with the final scenes. Beautiful send-off. And having one side of a Prince album as a key plot device on what is likely to be one of the most watched episode's of television this year is a wonderful thing.

Moonbeam said:

JorisE73 said:

I don't know anyone in real live who wasn't disappointed by this season and the ending excwept my 13 year old daughter.
And if people who don't like it are labeled 'edgy' and 'cool' (somehing proabbly only kids or mentally challenged people think) then what do we label the overly fawning 'we love it because whatever reason' fans?
Like i said in my previous post, I love the fact that Prince is getting the exposure, so I still don't understand why people are whining about me being negative because obviously I'm not. I don't care for the show and only watched it for my 13 year old becaue she loved it, but I thikjn it's great Prince is getting exposure in one of the most watched shows in a while even though nobody cares for the two tracks being used and aren't discussing it except for a bunch of Princefans.
I hoped for more discussion and interest (like with Kate Bush) on the tracks and that they were being used as the ultimate weapon to destroy the baddy from non-fans, but it's only Princefans discussing it and caring.

[Edited 1/7/26 11:05am]

I am objecting to your characterization of how Stranger Things 5 has been received and countering it with data, and also providing data that Prince’s catalogue is doing well as a counter to your thought that it would be forgotten in a few days. I AM seeing a fair amount of discussion about the choice of the Prince songs and their effective use, particularly “Purple Rain”. There’s been discussion about the meaning of “Purple Rain” as an apocalyptic love song, how the color purple arising from the mixture of red and blue is a good match for The Upside Down, and how rare it is for Prince or the estate to license his music for TV.

Let's see in a few weeks (like I also said) i hope I'm wromng but given the non-discussions being had already I have my doubts. Kate Bush was discussed for months after it was in Stranger Things, I hope the same for Prince but again I doubt it.
Primary Waves job is to licnese his music in shows and whatever so i think we'll see more of it eventually, but maybe this was a deal they masde with Netflix to use these two songs so the Estate could shelve the doc or something. I saw a post from some days ago of someone sayingf side B of Parade would have been a better fit and also to promote Parade's 40th annivesrary and that Mountains was a better fit than the non jouyous WDC and that if they hasd Sometimes it snows in April it would have broken down the older Prince fans who were there in that era and were fans of the show and at the same time introduce new fans to something else then Purplek Rain again. I somewhat agree but even though they buthcered Purple Rain in the scene the lyrics are more fitting.

Moonbeam said:

JorisE73 said:

Your IMDB stats don't mean anything. As if every fan of teh show puts there vote in and Homophobes review bombed alot of sites that eventually the last few days removed those negative reviews because of the homophobia. MOst people are on reddit or othewr forums dedicated to the show and there it's obvious most people have not mujch good to say about the season and they don't even mention or care about the two tracks used, it's only Prince fans who seem to care. Teh sudden bump on streaming for the tracks in temporary and honestly I don't see them doing number that Kate Bush did and why compare it to a completely different show endings, that just doesn't mean anything, there are a load of shows with higher ratings for the final episodes which also doesn't mean anything.

The IMDB ratings for Season 5 at least are real data rather than anecdotes. Every episode has at least 70,000 ratings. The finale has 157,000 ratings. That’s a lot more information to go off of than surveying random Reddit opinions. Online spaces provide platforms for loud, online screeching, and sadly a lot of articles are created with a veil of authenticity by posting 3 carefully selected comments from social media sites as if that is representative. The comparison to other, worse received final episodes, is at least a comparison from the same site. Your belief that most fans thought the final season (and the final episode) was horrible is unsubstantiated.

I don't think it's unsubstanciated simply because I hear REAL people complain about it more than praise it. Anonymous numbers on the internet don't mean much simply because they are easily manipulated by bots and there's more than enough talk of major companies like Disney buying positive reviews or using said bots (see Star Wars Acolyte that Disney bought positive reviews for to refledct on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes until they were caught), just look at all the review bombong done by bots on other shows or movies, I'd rather listen to real people and there opinions.

[Edited 1/7/26 12:50pm]

JorisE73 said:

ShellyMcG said:

JorisE73 said:

I don't know anyone in real live who wasn't disappointed by this season and the ending excwept my 13 year old daughter.
And if people who don't like it are labeled 'edgy' and 'cool' (somehing proabbly only kids or mentally challenged people think) then what do we label the overly fawning 'we love it because whatever reason' fans?
Like i said in my previous post, I love the fact that Prince is getting the exposure, so I still don't understand why people are whining about me being negative because obviously I'm not. I don't care for the show and only watched it for my 13 year old becaue she loved it, but I thikjn it's great Prince is getting exposure in one of the most watched shows in a while even though nobody cares for the two tracks being used and aren't discussing it except for a bunch of Princefans.
I hoped for more discussion and interest (like with Kate Bush) on the tracks and that they were being used as the ultimate weapon to destroy the baddy from non-fans, but it's only Princefans discussing it and caring.

[Edited 1/7/26 11:05am]

Well I think your 13 year old daughter is the target audience for the show anyway so I guess it's mission accomplished if she enjoyed it. But how do you know that it's only Prince fans who are talking about it? That seems like an extraordinary claim to make. The facts show that Gen Z streams of Prince music is up by a considerable amount. You think they're not talking about it with each other? Just because you haven't personally witnessed it doesn't mean it's not happening. Maybe they're discussing it on whatever forum teenagers discuss things. Places you don't go. Places I hope you don't go to anyway .

I don't go to online kindergartens but was interested in the reception of the two tracks on Reddit and other places. But on the Stranger Things topics on variopus forums fans don't seem to care about the fact that they used the two prince tracks (or even bowie's trasck at the end) and were more beiung divided on the season and the last few episodes and the homophobic mentally challengd again seeing a opportunity of bashing normal people in a TV show.The surge on streaming was for every track they used in the entire show, it's not that special and I really don't believe it will last as long oir has the impact with them taht Kate Bush's track had.
Consodering Gen Z has the attention span of a turd I really don't expect anything smart from them, simply because they experience and value music in a completely different way than people like me who grew up with vinyl in the 70s.

They blamed "review bombing" for the bad scores of most of the Marvel productions of the past 5 years. They blamed "review bombing" for the bad scores of most of the Star Wars productions of the past 5 years. Same with Star Trek, same with Dr. Who. Same with that Lord Of The Rings TV show...

Meanwhile, those franchises audiences have continuously dwindled to disasterous levels as viewers abandon them in droves. If they were all really good and the audiences really liked them then why are these franchises losing money? Maybe the "review bombing" was an accurate representation of what people thought of them?

JorisE73 said:

ShellyMcG said:

JorisE73 said: If the IMDB stats don't mean anything because it's not a true reflection of EVERYONE who watched it then surely your Reddit stats don't mean anything either for the same reason . I liked it. I actually don't know anyone in real life who didn't like it. I have seen some of the comments you're referring to on Reddit though but that's mostly just the chronically online doing what they do best, complaining about everything and being overly negative so as to appear "edgy" or "cool". Was the finale perfect? No. Of course not. I'd argue that the show peaked in Season 1 and never really reached those highs again. But it was fine. Not great like the super fans would have you believe. And not terrible as the trolls claim. I would say 7/10 is a pretty accurate score. And yeah, maybe the sudden increase in Prince interest is temporary. So what? The show has still introduced an entire generation to Prince and I can't see how that's a bad thing. Sure, it doesn't mean anything to us existing fans and we may not benefit from it but we're no worse off than we were before so again, I don't understand the negativity around this from some fans.

I don't know anyone in real live who wasn't disappointed by this season and the ending excwept my 13 year old daughter.
And if people who don't like it are labeled 'edgy' and 'cool' (somehing proabbly only kids or mentally challenged people think) then what do we label the overly fawning 'we love it because whatever reason' fans?
Like i said in my previous post, I love the fact that Prince is getting the exposure, so I still don't understand why people are whining about me being negative because obviously I'm not. I don't care for the show and only watched it for my 13 year old becaue she loved it, but I thikjn it's great Prince is getting exposure in one of the most watched shows in a while even though nobody cares for the two tracks being used and aren't discussing it except for a bunch of Princefans.
I hoped for more discussion and interest (like with Kate Bush) on the tracks and that they were being used as the ultimate weapon to destroy the baddy from non-fans, but it's only Princefans discussing it and caring.

[Edited 1/7/26 11:05am]

You must not be on social media and you do not know EVERYBODY.

On tik tok all the kids are using the songs.

paisleyparkgirl said:

JorisE73 said:

I don't know anyone in real live who wasn't disappointed by this season and the ending excwept my 13 year old daughter.
And if people who don't like it are labeled 'edgy' and 'cool' (somehing proabbly only kids or mentally challenged people think) then what do we label the overly fawning 'we love it because whatever reason' fans?
Like i said in my previous post, I love the fact that Prince is getting the exposure, so I still don't understand why people are whining about me being negative because obviously I'm not. I don't care for the show and only watched it for my 13 year old becaue she loved it, but I thikjn it's great Prince is getting exposure in one of the most watched shows in a while even though nobody cares for the two tracks being used and aren't discussing it except for a bunch of Princefans.
I hoped for more discussion and interest (like with Kate Bush) on the tracks and that they were being used as the ultimate weapon to destroy the baddy from non-fans, but it's only Princefans discussing it and caring.

[Edited 1/7/26 11:05am]

You must not be on social media and you do not know EVERYBODY.

On tik tok all the kids are using the songs.

Yeah, I'm not a idiot so I;'m not on TikTok, but since some kids are who are also on other forums they said alot of these brainless idiots or Tik Tokkers as they are called are posting things regarding Prince becaue of Stranger Things and trying to get him labeled as a groomer adn a homophobe and that he should be canceled. Sorry, but Tik Tok where that level of idiocy seeems to be the norm, I do not need in my life.
And what do you assume social media is or do you mean Instgram and Facebook? because I'm also not a shallow, attention seeking or insecure idiot so I don't do those things.

peedub said:

JorisE73 said:

peedub said:

JorisE73 said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

I've never seen a more negative fanbase, this is sad, it's almost as if you WANT it to be forgotten.

No wonder Prince dragged y'all.

It's not negative, that's just what you want to see it seems. It's just what the concensus is after reading all the ghate towards this last season and I agree, it's a lame season with a extremely lame ending.
I think it's great Prince is finally getting some exposure and this is the one of the most watched shows from the last decade so at kleast that is great. But given the fact most hardcore fans of the show don't like it I don't expect the tracks or the album to do much in a few days or maybe weeks, especially not like Kate Bush's song did. Kate Bush wass in a highy popular season, maybe even the most popular season of the show and the fans made that track happen again, I don't hear much from the fans of the show regarding WDC and PR and how ot blew up the upside down other than that it was a lame showdown and it seems that overshadows the use of the tracks.

This is tiresome. Nobody is claiming Prince will surge in the same way "Running Up That Hill" did. But saying it will be forgotten in a few days as you originally did was hyperbolic and clearly wrong.

Meanwhile, "Purple Rain" once again had its best day ever on Spotify with 2,140,384 streams and charted at #33 globally for the day and remains in the top 20 for the US and the UK. It is likely to re-enter the Billboard Hot 100, something only "Running Up That Hill" and "Master of Puppets" have managed after appearing on the show. "When Doves Cry" landed nearly 600K streams and is holding steady. The bumps for other popular Prince songs are holding up well.