Stranger Things 5 Finale: Matt Duffer Admits Prince Song Deal Was Only Possible Via Kate Bush

Netflix's final episode of Stranger Things arrived on New Year's Eve with a revelation that has left the entertainment industry breathless: the Duffer Brothers somehow managed to secure not one but two Prince songs for the climactic moment when reality itself collapses.

In an era when Prince's estate guards his catalogue with almost legendary ferocity, securing these tracks felt genuinely impossible. Yet here we are, with 'Purple Rain' soundtracking the emotional devastation of the Upside Down's final moments. And according to Matt Duffer, there is precisely one person to thank for this miracle: Kate Bush.

When the Duffer Brothers conceptualised the finale's centrepiece—a bomb detonation triggered by the iconic 1984 album Purple Rain by Prince and the Revolution—they knew immediately what was required. As Ross Duffer explains, 'Once we came up with the idea that the record was going to be the trigger for the bomb, we knew we needed an epic needle drop, and so many ideas were thrown around. I think there's nothing really more epic than Prince.'​

The brothers sought albums that opened with celebratory triumph and closed with profound emotional weight. Purple Rain fitted the vision flawlessly. Yet there was a monumental obstacle. As Ross notes with characteristic understatement, 'Prince lined up perfectly for us.'​

The Impossible Permission: Prince's Estate and the 'Purple Rain' Lockdown

The reason this achievement deserves genuine astonishment lies in a simple fact: Prince's estate does not generally licence 'Purple Rain' outside of its original 1984 film context. This is not a matter of record labels, corporate negotiations, or middleman licensing companies. This is the estate making a deliberate, protective choice. The song is untouchable. It has been for decades.​

The Duffer Brothers' request, when first submitted, was met with scepticism bordering on dismissal. 'We were told that it was a real long shot,' Matt Duffer recalls, 'so we just crossed our fingers.' The odds were terrible. Most contemporary productions requesting Prince material encounter absolute refusal. Yet the Duffer Brothers persisted, and something unexpected happened. The estate said yes.​

Matt Duffer's explanation for this breakthrough is remarkable in its candour: 'Thanks to Kate Bush, we were able to acquire the rights.'​

The Kate Bush Effect: How One Licensing Decision Changed Everything

To understand this statement's significance, one must appreciate what happened to Kate Bush following Stranger Things Season 4. When 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)', her 1985 masterpiece, appeared in that season, the song experienced a cultural resurrection so profound it defied probability. A track released nearly four decades prior climbed to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2022.​

Bush's decisive choice to licence her song to the Duffer Brothers proved transformative not merely for her own career trajectory but, apparently, for the entire music industry's perception of what Stranger Things represented. The show had demonstrated an extraordinary ability to resurrect songs and artists from cultural dormancy, turning forgotten classics into global phenomena. Bush's generous, collaborative approach—she owns her entire copyright and could have refused—established a new paradigm.​

When the Duffer Brothers approached Prince's estate about 'Purple Rain', they arrived with something invaluable: proof that Stranger Things could elevate an artist's legacy exponentially. Bush's precedent suggested that licensing songs to the show was not capitulation but investment in cultural resurgence. The estate, apparently, saw the logic.​

The Emotional Architecture of the Choice

The Duffer Brothers had 'never talked about a song choice as much as we did for that moment', according to Ross Duffer. In the finale, as Hopper and Murray trigger the bomb's remote detonation, 'When Doves Cry' escorts the gang's escape from the interdimensional bridge with its infectious energy. Then, as the Upside Down collapses and Eleven appears at the MAC-Z gate—seemingly still trapped within a disintegrating dimension—the music shifts to 'Purple Rain'.​

The choice was thrilling 'because it just has not been used. [Prince's] estate does not generally allow that song to be licenced outside the Purple Rain movie', Ross explains. But more fundamentally, it encapsulated perfectly the emotional devastation of that moment.​

In securing two Prince songs for television's most anticipated finale, the Duffer Brothers accomplished something that seemed impossible. They proved that Kate Bush's decision to trust them with her catalogue had rippled far further than anyone anticipated—all the way to the gates of one of music's most famously protective estates.