10 songs from 1989 that should have been in the ‘Stranger Things’ finale
Spoilers ahead: Back in the early days of the White Stripes, Jack White explained the concept of the two-piece rock band as one of liberation through limitation, noting, “Too much opportunity kills creativity”, and if ever a phrase sums up the last hurrah of Netflix’s tentpole series Stranger Things, it’s this one.
With a nearly limitless budget and a gigantic international audience to entertain, or not anger, as the case may be, the Duffer brothers unavoidably lost touch with a lot of the smaller, more subtle, character-based elements that made the first season of their show quite charming way back in 2016.
What started out as a very capable mash-up of Stephen King and Steven Spielberg ‘1980s kid adventure’ tropes, It meets ET, wound up turning into a bloated Marvel movie in the show’s final chapters, culminating in a legitimately humorous CGI fight with the ‘final boss’, a giant Lovecraftian spider monster (the Mind Flayer) that the kids randomly stab and shoot machine guns at til it dies, somehow suffering no notable injuries themselves.
Fortunately, after the big battle concludes, the Duffers mercifully give the second half of the final Stranger Things episode back over to the smaller stuff, as we skip 18 months into the future, to the summer of 1989, when all of our beloved teen characters, played by 28-year-old actors, finally graduate from high school. If you’re in a lurch, wondering whether it’s acceptable that the curmudgeonly old Hawkins police chief, Jim Hopper, gets to live happily ever after with Winona Ryder, even though he gunned down at least 75 members of the US military over the previous three episodes, just go with it.
There’s no reason to waste time pointing out all the many plot-holes or brewing up conspiracies about a secret ‘real’ series finale that will magically make it all make sense. It’s best to just accept this thing for what it is: an amusing bit of popcorn entertainment that got too big for its britches, unless, of course, you want to whine about the music choices.
Coming off the surprisingly heartwarming phenomenon of Stranger Things season four, when the prominent use of the song ‘Running Up That Hill’ suddenly and delightfully awakened the entirety of Gen Z to the wonders of Kate Bush, the Duffers came into this final season with almost unprecedented needle-drop power.
Surely, they were inundated with calls from agents, managers, and record labels over the past few years, with everyone hoping for a similar bone to be thrown in the direction of their own under-appreciated 1980s recording artists. In the end, though, despite having the Hawkins indie radio station WSQK as one of the central set pieces of this season, the Duffers were pretty judicious about their needle-drop usage, assigning most of the big musical moments to the least obscure names that Netflix money could buy: Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Fleetwood Mac, Prince, David Bowie, and plenty more Kate Bush, albeit always the same song.
There are brief attempts at some retro indie taste-making, including a direct callout of the Butthole Surfers, a few seconds of the Cowboy Junkies, and a nod to the ‘new’ Pixies single ‘Here Comes Your Man’ during the 1989 coda of the last episode. Overall, though, a whole bunch of ageing ’80s artists and their agents came away feeling bummed at a missed opportunity, not to mention the fact that we never heard a solitary second of hip hop, the biggest new thing going on in the late 1980s.
So, for the belated financial benefit of no one, here are ten more songs that might have made sense as needle drops during the closing scenes of Stranger Things. Including all of them would have been ridiculous, but dropping in one or two might have helped us forget that little Nancy Wheeler also shot and killed roughly 30 innocent soldiers who were merely following orders.
Songs that should’ve been in the Stranger Things finale:
- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – ‘I Won’t Back Down’: Does it feel like Gen Z hasn’t really locked in on Petty yet? If Chalamet got them into Dylan, maybe this would have helped them discover another worthy Wilbury.
- Fine Young Cannibals – ‘Don’t Look Back’: What’s more 1989 than FYC? Plus, it’s a lyrically suitable lyrical message for a bunch of kids with deep, deep monster trauma.
- Young MC – ‘Bust a Move’: Any kid who graduated high school in 1989 was absolutely dancing to this at the afterparty, and we were deprived of a ‘Dustin breakdances to Young MC’ moment.
- 10,000 Maniacs – ‘Trouble Me’: Released in May ‘89 and written by singer Natalie Merchant, this one is all about telling someone that it’s OK to be vulnerable and ask for help, especially after being bludgeoned by a demogorgon.
- The Replacements – ‘I’ll Be You’: Paul Westerberg was the voice of the tough, edgy teen with a heart of gold, and this single dropped just before graduation time in ‘89.
- De La Soul – ‘Me Myself and I’: Another one of the absolute hip hop jams of the summer of ‘89 and the best known single from De La’s debut album 3 Feet High and Rising.
- The Ocean Blue – ‘Between Something and Nothing’: The guys in this band had only just graduated high school themselves when they released their debut album in 1989, a fantastic example of British dream pop played by Pennsylvanians, and potentially a lyrical reference to the upside-down wormhole thing in Hawkins.
- Milli Vanilli – ‘Girl I’m Gonna Miss You’: Mike’s ode to Eleven, or is it all just an illusion, like the singers in Milli Vanilli performing their own vocals? Do today’s kids even know this fun bit of ‘80s pop culture?
- Skid Row – ‘18 and Life’: If the Hawkins kids really were into MTV’s ‘Headbangers Ball’ like the late Eddie Munson, they’d have been all over this brand new hair metal classic.
- Kate Bush – ‘The Sensual World’: It didn’t come out until September of ‘89, but lord knows Max would have got an early promo copy to hear some fucking different Kate Bush songs.
