2022: The Summer of Nostalgia
What the recent success of "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Running Up That Hill" say about pop culture today.
What year is this? Is it 2022? Or 1986? With rising inflation and the ongoing tensions with Russia, this time over its invasion of Ukraine, one would not be wrong in thinking that we've entered a time warp back into the 1980s.
But it's very much 2022 even though two popular culture hits this summer — "Top Gun: Maverick," the sequel to the very popular 1986 film about elite Navy pilots starring Tom Cruise, and Kate Bush's song "Running Up The Hill (A Deal with God), previously released in 1985, is literally running up the charts in every country after being featured in season four of the Netflix series "Stranger Things.,"
So why are they doing so well, given that they had their roots in pop culture nearly 40 years ago? Is it because they are ahead of their time? Or because it took audiences 40 years to finally appreciate them?
The answer is probably a little bit of both.
"Top Gun: Maverick" is the very loud, yet very sincere film sequel to the 1986 Hollywood hit that brought filmgoers big jets and lots of military men sweating all the time (whether they were indoors or outdoors), including the now legendary and some would say highly homoerotic volleyball scene set to Kenny Loggins aptly title tune "Playing with the Boys" that really does nothing to further the plot but sure does give viewers plenty of sweaty military men eye candy.
In the sequel, Tom Cruise returns as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, the first film's renegade elite Navy fighter pilot. Now older and hopefully wiser, Cruise's character is tasked with training the next generation of elite Navy pilots for a dangerous mission, which as expected, he gets called up to lead anyway at the last minute.
"Top Gun: Maverick" was originally due to be released in theaters on July 19, 2019. But due to expensive reshoots, the film was then set for a summer 2020 release date. Of course, by then, COVID-19 had essentially shut down the world and movie theaters. Paramount, the film's distributor, tried for a December 2020 release date but then decided to go for a July 2021 release date. With films still struggling to find theater audiences in 2021, the decision was made to try again for a May 2022 release date.
Since its release, "Top Gun: Maverick" has earned healthy box office earnings (currently $800 million worldwide as of this writing, making it Cruise's biggest box office hit ever) and positive critical reviews. Cruise has said publicly that he made the film for movie theaters and movie-going audiences. And those audiences have responded in droves. Especially older audiences who likely remember the original film when they were a teenager or saw the film perhaps in their college days on DVD. Younger movie-going audiences have shown up too, likely intrigued by the 80's action premise, and the chance to enjoy essentially a big-screen summer movie extravaganza for the first time in two years.
While movie sequels are de rigueur for Hollywood, "Top Gun: Maverick" is one of the few films that is very aware of its nostalgia factor and that Tom Cruise, is, according to some in the industry, the last of the great movie stars. In his case, one of the few stars left who can essentially make a film on his own terms and open a movie on his name alone. Even the film itself has subtle double entendre dialogue sequences that reference Cruise's character as the "last of his kind" in the military, but if you read between the lines, it's not hard to get the references to Cruise's own celebrity status as well.
So are younger and older audiences going to see the film just for Tom Cruise? Probably not. While older audiences certainly remember Cruise's run of hit films for the last 30 years, younger audiences certainly know of Cruise's fame, but probably not much else. Instead, the success of "Top Gun: Maverick" probably owes itself to a once tried and true old-school Hollywood formula that still works, especially after two years of being forced indoors due to the pandemic — Make a sequel from a very well-known hit film with the original star, try and make it better than the original, and hope to goodness audiences are hungry to pay ticket prices to see it in a theater. And after two years of not being at the movie theatre, it's not a surprise that most movie-going audiences chose a familiar and rousing piece of Hollywood filmmaking to get them again excited about the movies.
While the mass appeal of "Top Gun: Maverick" was likely to be expected, the current wave of popularity for Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is still an unexpected but very pleasant surprise.
Released as the lead-off single to her 1985 album "Hounds of Love", "Running Up That Hill" became the iconic British art-rock singer/songwriter's biggest hit at the time. Not only reaching the top three in the U.K. but also the top 30 in the United States, which was then, her first ever single to achieve such a feat.
While Bush certainly earned more fans in the U.S. after the initial success of "RUTH", (the song title for short) she never became a huge star in the U.S., mostly because her very unique brand of "art rock" steeped in English and Irish mythologies at times proved too inscrutable for mainstream audiences.
After several more albums in the late 80s and early 90s, and then very infrequently after that, Bush preferred to stay out of the pop limelight, focusing on raising her family and leading a very private life. Now Bush certainly has licensed "RUTH" over the years for other T.V. shows and movies, including most recently "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Pose," but it wasn't until "RUTH" was featured very prominently in Season 4 of Netflix's "Stranger Things" that the song really took off.
Suddenly, "RUTH" was being streamed everywhere, including on Spotify and Apple Music. Sales increased rapidly too, until "RUTH" was crowned the №1 song in Apple's and Billboard's Global 200 list.
Since then, "RUTH" is now Bush's first ever U.S. top 10 hit, (currently at №4 a this writing), and earned her the №1 song in several countries, including the U.K., the first time she topped the charts there since her first ever hit "Wuthering Heights" back in 1978.
By reaching №1 in the U.K., Bush set all sorts of records, including having the longest span between №1 records and being the oldest female artist to top the chart, a fact that earned her congratulations from the previous record-holder — Cher.
So why is "Running Up That Hill" so popular now, even though the song has been around for so long and featured on other shows? Being on a hit show like "Stranger Things" and having a prominent part in the show certainly helps. Yet "RUTH," despite being almost 40 years old, is very much current with the way it sounds. So much pop music today is based on a synthesizer-focused beat, like "RUTH." While many younger audiences very likely never heard of Bush before "Stranger Things," many contemporary artists like Halsey and Harry Styles, to name a few, certainly would be and were likely indirectly influenced by older artists like Bush and the whole 80s soundtrack. The final irony is that Bush wrote "RUTH" like she did in hopes of being more accessible to listeners in the early 80s when so much of music was focused on the "New Wave" sound from bands like "Eurythmics," "Duran Duran" and "Human League." Now "Running Up That Hill" is not only a current hit but still sounds completely ahead of its time even today, thanks largely to the incredible production Bush added to the entire record.
The success of "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Running Up That Hill" — albeit to very different audiences and demographics points to the ongoing trend of the few years of mainstream media of all kinds looking to the past for inspiration. Just think of all the biopics released including the upcoming ones focused on Elvis Pressley and Marilyn Monroe. So much of today's music also samples older hits and styles as a kind of homage. But ultimately, what may be the most significant factor is that after two years of uncertainty due to the pandemic, audiences when it comes to popular culture and media are very likely seeking a form of "comfort food" — something relatable that they know but also something takes a classic song, movie, or even a whole decade like the 1980s and recreates it for today's audiences.
Both "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Running Up That Hill" continues to surprise their respective industries with their success. But with more audiences seeking nostalgia than ever, especially in their media choices, expect these unexpected "hits down memory lane" to become more constant in future summers and years.