FEATURE:
Serial Successes: Never Been a Cornflake Girl?
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing Hounds of Love’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: United Archives/Alamy
Following Kate Bush’s ‘Stranger Things Revival’, Are Other Artists Going to Follow Suit?
_________
I have written about this before…
IN THIS PHOTO: Tori Amos in 1994
but there are definite advantages to Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) being played on Stranger Things last year. That Netflix series included the Hounds of Love song in a powerful scene with one of the central characters, Max. A song that literally saved their life, the track that was originally a single in 1985 reached number one in the U.K. and many countries around the world. Most of the impact is good. The original single went to three in the U.K., so it was sort of righted in 2022 when it deservedly got to number one in the U.K. Many who had not heard of Kate Bush found her music, and sales for Hounds of Love increased. Also, it brought Kate Bush back into the spotlight. She updated her website and provided messages and thanks to fans. She even gave her first full audio interview in six years when she spoke with Woman’s Hour. If it had not been for Stranger Things that would not have happened. So, in all, it had a very positive effect. I think a few worrying things came out of the Stranger Things inclusion. If Kate Bush finally became better known in the U.S., I wonder whether it is down to big T.V. series to awaken people and actually make them conscious of an artist that has been around for decades. The show also got a lot of credit from the press for ‘reviving’ Kate Bush. Like she was obsolete and needed that oxygen.
The fact is that actually Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is one of her best-known songs. Prior to 2022, it was played widely on radio. Maybe a new generation found the track this way, but it was troubling that they were not already aware. It makes me wonder whether her music is rare on U.S. radio and why here so many missed out on her. Is it the case vinyl and physical music is not passed down? In an age of streaming, are we relying on younger listeners to discover music this way rather than inherit it from their parents? I also think that is sort of undermines a successful and self-made career when you hear terms like ‘the Kate Bush effect’. This assumption that she, now, will influence other T.V. shows to feature an artist or band that might not be known to all that get a new lease because of a prime spot in an episode. I guess, if it creates more awareness of an artist or song then that is a good thing. Things like Stranger Things comes along does create this laziness and ignorance from the press. I recently wrote about how the press still refers to Kate Bush as the ‘Stranger Things/Running Up That Hill singer’. Is she only known for that one song?! Maybe Wuthering Heights gets thrown in there, but many see her now as this famous artist from the T.V. show, rather than the producer and songwriter who has been around for over forty-five years!
I will not rant any more. You have to focus on the good aspects and the fact Kate Bush is being talked about. That is a good thing. The Netflix series Wednesday featured The Cramps in a prominent scene where Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday (Addams) dances to Goo Goo Muck. I am not sure that song and band will have the same sort of revival ands success Kate Bush enjoyed, as they are a bit more niche and less commercial in that sense. I do think that more and more, we are going to see T.V. shows framing powerful and wonderful scenes with iconic and big songs. This is not a new phenomenon, but the success and revival of a classic song can bring attention and popularity to that T.V. series. An artist that gets compared to Kate Bush a lot of Tori Amos. As this Australian article asks, will the T.V. series Yellowjackets help give Amos the same sort of boom and attention as was afforded Kate Bush last year?
“Popular Showtime/Paramount+ series Yellowjackets has returned, with the season 2 opener premiering last Friday. The show came back with a bang, featuring music by Papa Roach (Last Resort), Sharon Van Etten (Seventeen), and the Tori Amos classic, Cornflake Girl.
Cornflake Girl was originally released in January 1994, with Amos' groundbreaking second album, Under The Pink, coming out a few weeks later. Cornflake Girl debuted at #19 in Australia, while the album hit #5 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
With Yellowjackets' increasing popularity, can Amos experience the same chart success as Kate Bush, years into their careers, with an older song? Well, with music supervisor Nora Felder on board, it very well might be possible.
Felder worked on Stranger Things season 4 and was a big reason why the show’s use of the Kate Bush number, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God), found massive popularity on the charts.
Kate Bush first charted in Australia in April of 1978 with her debut single, Wuthering Heights, which logged three weeks at the top of the Kent/AMR charts from 22 May 1978 until 5 June, holding for three weeks at #1. 44 years and one week later, she landed her second chart-topping song in Australia, albeit with a 1985-issued single.
In a new interview with Variety, Felder outlined the fascinating multi-layered richness of Amos’ music, particularly her songwriting, as the reasoning behind featuring her music on Yellowjackets.
“When I first heard Cornflake Girl, my take on its core meaning was that it deals primarily with betrayals between women,” Felder said.
“The lyrics in connection with the ending of the first episode felt like a befitting underlying message. Cornflake Girl adds to the anticipation of things to come with these rich, multilayered and downright compelling female characters, our Yellowjackets.”
Tori Amos isn’t the only artist representing the 90s on Yellowjackets: when the trailer for season 2 dropped, it was soundtracked by Florence + The Machine’s take on Just A Girl by No Doubt.
Just A Girl has never sounded so creepy - the soft isolated piano definitely helps - but it’s perfect for a thriller television series about people who do what they must to survive, including resorting to cannibalism.
“I’m such a huge fan of Yellowjackets and this era of music, and this song especially had a huge impact on me growing up, so I was thrilled to be asked to interpret it in a ‘deeply unsettling’ way for the show,” Florence Welch commented in a press release.
“We tried to really add some horror elements to this iconic song to fit the tone of the show. And as someone whose first musical love was pop-punk and Gwen Stefani, it was a dream job”.
Both Florence Welch and Tori Amos are featured in Yellowjackets. It does worry me that this article asks whether Tori Amos will be ‘the next Kate Bush’. That is problematic for various reasons. Amos has always been compared with Bush. The former has her own identity and sound, and the latter probably is tired of hearing the comparisons made - and I am not sure whether Bush even listens to Amos’ music. I know it is meant will Amos have the same success, but it is another case of a T.V. show platforming a song and artist that people should already know about. I love Tori Amos, so I do hope that Cornflake Girl gets a new release and storms the charts. From the genius Under the Pink album, it would be great if a new generation bought that. The inspiration for the song came from a long-time friend of Amos’. They were discussing female genital mutilation in Africa, particularly how a close female family member would betray the victim by performing the procedure. ‘Cornflake girls’ was a term that Amos heard used when girls would betray and hurt close friends. Cornflake Girl’s lyrics where Amos says she is not a cornflake girl but a raisin girl. That is to do with cereal, and the fact that raisins are rarer and harder to find than cornflakes. Even if boxes of Cornflakes cereals did get released with Amos’ face on them, the 1994 single has deeper meaning. It got inside the top ten in the U.S. and U.K., but it did not reach the top spot. Like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), it does deserves to be number one and enjoyed by a new generation.
The eighth track on Under the Pink, that album did get to number one in the U.K. in 1994. Even though Tori Amos is American, it only charted at twelve. It seems a shame that her own country did not embrace the album the way the U.K. did! Amos now lives over here, but I would like to see Under the Pink get a new release and storm the charts. It is clear that T.V. shows have this power and influence. At a time when streaming dominates and we can scroll through songs, featuring a single song in a visual scene has this potency and pull. I wish all the best for Tori Amos, and it is good that important and popular T.V. shows are choosing to show love to older songs rather than feature someone brand-new or trending. It is about the quality and importance of the track and not how many streams it has and whether it is ‘cool’ or ‘relevant’. Tori Amos is still putting out albums, and we all hope that Kate Bush releases another album. She is someone who is continuing to influence artists in so many ways. Stranger Things did help in getting people talking about her. That is a good thing. So long as people then explore the rest of the catalogue, as radio stations still stubbornly spin Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in preference to anything else. It is a narrow focus and it risk an artist as important as Kate Bush being defined by a single song. Tori Amos’ Cornflake Girl will get this boost. I hope that people who discover her through Paramount+ and Yellowjackets also dig her catalogue and albums such as Under the Pink. It is evident that much influence can come from a great T.V. show. If a scene is judged just right and features a wonderful song, the overall effect can be mesmeric and seismic! Whether featuring Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) or Tori Amos’ Cornflake Girl, it does prove…
THE power of the medium.