Over the course of its five-season run, Stranger Things repeatedly found ways to resurrect Eighties culture, perhaps no more potently than through its many memorable needle drops. And the show’s recent finale featured what may have been the biggest yet with two classic Prince songs. (Spoilers ahead, obviously.)
Speaking with Netflix’s in-house publication Tudum, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer explained how they secured “When Doves Cry” and “Purple Rain” for the finale. Both songs, of course, feature on Prince’s classic 1984 album Purple Rain, and accompanying film; but neither has ever really been licensed for use in other movies or TV shows. (A few covers of “When Doves Cry” have appeared elsewhere, like Quindon Tarver’s version for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.)
The Duffer Brothers knew a couple of big songs would be key for the last episode after they came up with the idea to have a record player serve as a remote trigger for a bomb that would destroy the bridge connecting the real world from the Upside Down. Specifically, they needed an album side that opened with something celebratory — to match the excitement of the bomb being triggered — and ended with something more emotionally heavy as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) appears at the inter-dimensional gate, ostensibly still in the Upside Down.
Ross Duffer said they “never talked about a song choice as much as we did for that moment,” adding: “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.”
And when it came to hitting those two moods, side two of Purple Rain “lined up perfectly for us,” Ross said.
But securing the rights to both songs wasn’t a given. “[W]e were told that it was a real long shot, so we just crossed our fingers,” Matt said. He credited the show’s use of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” — which returned to the charts in 2022 after being featured in Season Four of Stranger Things — with ultimately helping to convince the Prince estate to grant them use of the two songs.
“Thank God they agreed,” Matt said.
It also looks like the decision to sync the two Purple Rain tracks is already paying off. According to Variety, since the finale aired on New Year’s Eve, “Purple Rain” has seen a 243 percent jump in streams on Spotify, with a 577 percent surge among global Gen Z listeners. “When Doves Cry,” meanwhile, has seen a 200 percent jump, with a 128 percent rise among Gen Z listeners.
It’s worth noting, too, that the Prince estate’s decision to license “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry” for the first time to a Netflix show comes at a moment when the streaming giant and the estate are on particularly good terms. Last February, Netflix announced that it would no longer release a documentary about Prince by filmmaker Ezra Edelman (who helmed the Oscar and Emmy-winning doc, O.J.: Made in America). According to a New York Times Magazine feature, Edelman’s film contained allegations of physical and emotional abuse against Prince, leveled by some of the musician’s former creative and romantic partners. In agreeing to bury Edelman’s film, Netflix and the Prince estate said they’d “come to a mutual agreement that will allow the estate to develop and produce a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive.”
