What was the first song from a movie to be certified gold?
When Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ experienced a second life due to Stranger Things, one of the biggest takeaways was how film and television can supercharge a song’s success.
We’ve seen this many times across history, but what made this example especially telling was that it proved how much success often hinges on cultural context and timing. “The whole world’s gone mad,” Bush said at the time, baffled by the fact that her song experienced an explosion bigger than she could have ever imagined not 37 years ago.
Other examples aren’t quite as black and white, but they follow a similar pattern. There are loads of songs that have enjoyed a significant chunk of success after being tied to a specific film or TV, and loads that have experienced a similar resurgence years after release. Sophie Ellis-Bextor probably owes a lot of her current relevance to Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, just as there’s probably a lot to be said about the current resurgence of t.A.T.u.’s ‘All The Things She Said’.
But while it’s fun to dive into all the reasons why audiences latch onto songs later or in different contexts, it’s hard to argue with the numbers, especially when it comes to measuring different parts of a song’s journey and the links between music and film. Before Stranger Things, for instance, Bush’s had modest success, but the show bumped up its streams by over 8,000%, per Billboard.
What was the first song from a movie to be certified gold?
Many others likely wouldn’t have attracted such an intense cultural moment were it not for their artistic counterparts, like Survivor’s Rocky III anthem ‘Eye of the Tiger’, Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’, and Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Endless Love’. It speaks volumes about the value of convergence of both forms, but what’s even more revealing is that the first song to reach such high levels of success wasn’t actually recognised for what it was until years later.
This happened for two reasons. The first was that the RIAA began recognising gold records with sales over 500,000 units in 1958, more than a decade after the Glenn Miller Orchestra wrote and recorded ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ for the movie Sun Valley Serenade in 1941. The second was that there were more reasons for its success than its connection to the film, and that was the sense of joy and camaraderie that it brought at the beginning of World War II in America.
The film no doubt spurred on its success, however, and the song remained at the top of the charts in 1941, until Miller himself bumped it off in 1942 with ‘A String of Pearls’. However, much like those we’ve already covered – from Bush to Ellis-Bextor – Miller’s achievement with Sun Valley Serenade proved that little has actually changed when it comes to cultural importance and timing with music in films.
After all, its success wasn’t just about tapping into the zeitgeist, although it’s definitely about that, too. Instead, it was a deliberate move to profit on the popularity of Glenn Miller with something they knew audiences needed and wanted at the time. It was lighthearted but loaded with meaning, meaning people could watch casually or immerse on a deeper level, or in this case, both.
Generally, soundtracks usually do well because they offer both resonance and escape in the same way, like how the wartime contexts of Sun Valley Serenade lifted spirits with music and comedy, providing a natural touchpoint for people to latch onto during times of turmoil. In other cases, as we’ve seen, it is dressed up entirely differently, but the basic premise remains the same.
