When the first season of Stranger Things blew up into a monster hit on Netflix, the show quickly turned into a cultural phenomenon that has beget three more seasons, with the final one due in 2025. One could argue it helped extend the ‘80s revival that kicked in around the turn of the millennium—through the different seasons, spin-offs (on stage and in print), and especially its amazing ability to revive classic ‘80s songs to younger ears. This show is a once in a generational experience—what other series could have taken a vintage Kate Bush single that had 150 million streams and rocket it past a billion within a few months?
Retro Revival
One aspect of the show that is perhaps underappreciated is it helped give the underground synthwave movement a boost. For those who don’t know synthwave—and its various names and offshoots like retrowave, outrun, and darksynth—is a nostalgic ‘80s-influenced genre that really taps into the electronic sounds from pop and rock music of that time. It’s influenced by everything from Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre to the Knight Rider and Miami Vice theme songs. Many of its album covers are drenched in bright colors and neon art that call back to the ‘80s.
Synthwave revels in the vintage keyboard and drum sounds that were popular during the decade of decadence, and sometimes artists will bring in modern pop or rock flavors or combine different old-school sounds in ways that hadn’t been done back then. A prime example is Carpenter Brut—they often sound like synth-pop, giallo horror scores, and Judas Priest mashed up together.
The soundtrack to Stranger Things was composed and performed by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. They are two of the four members of Austin, Texas, electronic music group S U R V I V E, whose earlier music had more of an ambient industrial flavor to it. Some critics and listeners made comparisons of their Stranger Things scoring work to the horror scoring work of Goblin and John Carpenter (with Alan Howarth), among other things.
Unconscious Callback
During an interview I did with them in 2016, the twosome didn’t think they were purposely trying to be retro.
“We’re obviously influenced by a lot music from the late ’70s and the ’70s in general,” Dixon explained. “So the production style and the instruments that were available back then, which we use a lot of, that’s going to define what our music sounds like in a certain sense because we’re using similar instruments, the same exact instruments that people from the time were using. In that aspect, it’s kind of hard to get away from it, but we’re not looking to make ’80s influenced [music].”
“We identify with the tone a lot of that more even though we do use a lot of modern stuff as well, tone-wise and sonically,” Stein added. “But as in the past, they were trying to make something forward-thinking and futuristic whereas we are still trying to push our own boundaries and evolve sound as well and do something that’s new.”
While ‘80s pop culture has certainly been influencing a lot of art in the 21st century—and let’s face it, when you work on a ‘80s-era series, you’re going to invoke the time period—the sonic tone of Dixon and Stein’s work was not only a throwback for older viewers but something vibrant and fresh for some younger ones.
The Stranger Things Effect
The first season of Stranger Things arrived in mid-2016, and there are those who will argue that 2016-17 was when the genre really peaked. It had gestated partially through 2000s synth-pop revival groups like Ladytron and M83. Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack to the 2011 action movie Drive (starring Ryan Gosling) and Jeff Grace’s score to the 2014 thriller Cold In July (starring Don Johnson) were influenced by the genre. Active since the mid-2000s, Kavinsky scored a hit album in 2013 with OutRun, which reportedly sold 500,000 copies in France. The 2015 satirical short film Kung Fury, an ‘80s movie pastiche, was tied into a synthwave single sung by David Hasselhoff. The different moods and sounds created under the genre’s umbrella are diverse.
By the time the hit Netflix series had arrived, artists including The Midnight, Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, Robert Parker, Lazerhawk, Com Truise, and FM-84 were growing and flourishing. After Stranger Things blew up, more happened. Mark Mothersbaugh concocted a synthwave score for Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Muse and The Weeknd released synthwave-influenced albums—2018’s Uprising and 2022’s Dawn FM, respectively. Many leading names of the genre started touring more, including The Midnight, FM-84 (and solo, its singer Ollie Wride), Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, Magic Sword, and synth-metallers Dance with the Dead. Kavinsky performed at the closing night ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Even horror movie director/composer John Carpenter, an influence on the Stranger Things soundtrack, has teamed up with his son Cody and godson Daniel to record four original Lost Themes albums, and toured three times internationally between 2016 and 2018.
Cumulative Curation
Naturally, all of these artists, albums, and tours have a cumulative effect, but the Stranger Things boom certainly pulled in more people (this writer included) to a genre that, despite being possibly the most mainstream underground movement out there, rarely gets mass media attention as a whole. Given the sheer glut of new releases that has come out over the last few years, there are times the genre feels too nostalgic for its own good. As usual, the cream rises to the top, and there is still good music out there, and there will be for years to come. What’s interesting is the Stranger Things score is more ambient and atmospheric than the synthwave genre, which is more groove-driven and pop- and rock-inflected. But the vibes sympathize in either form.
Stranger Things undoubtedly played its part in keeping alive the spirit of ‘80s. All of the instrumentals on the first season’s soundtrack have a combined Spotify total of nearly 100 million plays, and the platform’s recommendations meant some listeners have been led to other proponents of synthwave. Because the series is so popular and influential—S U R V I V E even got New York Times coverage at the outset—it has definitely drawn some listeners into a style of music that otherwise might have been ignored by the media at large. It’s still moving forward, its musical treasures waiting to be discovered by new listeners.
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Photo by NETFLIX/Moviestore/Shutterstock
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