It may be 2022 but most of the UK was transported back to 1985 this summer, as Kate Bush’s record-breaking hit Running Up That Hill has been named the UK’s Official Song of the Summer 2022, the Official Charts Company can reveal today.
Nostalgia reigns supreme as Running Up That Hill – resurrected into the public consciousness thanks to the release of Stranger Things season 4 in in two parts across May and July – beats off modern-day anthems by the likes of Harry Styles, LF SYSTEM and Beyoncé.
Based on new Official Charts Company streaming and sales data from around 9,000 UK physical and digital outlets, the juddering New Wave masterpiece clocks in over 762,000 chart units over the summer period; tracked from the first week of June to the last week of August.
When it (finally) hit Number 1 this June, Running Up That Hill broke several Official Charts records in the process, including the longest time taken for a single to reach Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart – 37 years, and now the lead single from Bush’s magnum opus Hounds of Love tops the Official Charts’ Songs of the Summer list with the most streams of any song this summer (86.6 million) and the most digital downloads too (over 42,000).
The longest-running Number 1 single of the year so far, Harry Styles’ similarly 80s-themed As It Was, places at Number 2, while Harry himself claims a further two entries in the wider Top 40; Late Night Talking (10) and Music For A Sushi Restaurant (22).
Also helping to soundtrack the hottest summer on record was LF SYSTEM’s long-running Number 1 hit Afraid To Feel, Cat Burns’ breakthrough viral anthem Go (5) and Beyoncé’s extravagant house banger Break My Soul (8).
Now that dance music is officially back on the charts, a number of high-tempo releases also appear, including David Guetta, Becky Hill & Ella Henderson’s Crazy What Love Can Do (7), Nathan Daw & Ella Henderson’s 21 Reasons (12), Jax Jones & MNEK on Where Did You Go? (16) and Lost Frequencies & Calum Scott’s Where Are You Now (20), all Top 10 hits on the Official Singles Chart this year.
Elsewhere, we also see appearance’s from Sam Ryder’s record-breaking Eurovision anthem SPACE MAN (26), Dave’s Number 1 hit Starlight (35) and Tate McRae’s ascendant pop-rock anthem She’s All I Wanna Be (39).
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