We knew Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s The Batman would have impact. After all, how could this deliciously emo and raw take on Batman not land with audiences? For most movies, success primarily comes from box office numbers. But not only has The Batman won in that regard, but it also created something even more significant by bringing together two pop-cultural icons, Nirvana and Batman. Honestly, Nirvana plus Batman makes a lot of sense. And viewers/listeners seem to think so too… Because ever since The Batman released in theaters, its chief anthem, Nirvana’s “Something in the Way,” has seen its streams explode.
Billboard shared more about this massive uptick in Nirvana streams. In fact, the very appearance of the song in The Batman’s trailers helped it debut on Billboard’s charts for the first time ever in September 2o20. “Something in the Way” first released in 1991. On top of this, in the first four days after The Batman’s official release, streams of “Something in the Way” shot up 734%. What a wild amount of percent. This Nirvana deep-cut even appeared in Spotify’s Daily USA Top 50 songs after The Batman released, ranking in the top 5.
Here are some of the numbers to really drive the point home:
Daily On-Demand Official U.S. Streaming Totals For Nirvana’s “Something In The Way”
Feb. 28: 72,000, according to initial reports to MRC Data
March 1: 78,000
March 2: 99,000
March 3: 123,000
March 4*: 291,000
March 5: 505,000
March 6: 808,000
March 7: 1.5 million
March 8: 1.6 million*indicates the release date of The Batman.
We think those totals say it all.
The next thing we need is a special The Batman music video set to the Nirvana song. Robert Pattinson could star, Matt Reeves could direct… Although, now that we think about it, in a way, the whole of The Batman movie does become one big music video set to “Something in the Way.” We just have to hit repeat a lot.
If you’ve worn your ears out on this one song, though, you’re in luck, because Nerdist put together a whole playlist for situations like these. Take a Nirvana break and switch over to some other songs we think Bruce Wayne listened to while crying, we mean, working in his Batcave.
Before The Batman’s release, Director Matt Reeves shared with Empire, “When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way.’ That’s when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we’ve seen before, there’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse. So I started making this connection to Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, and the idea of this fictionalized version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor.”
We can’t wait to see which deep-cut anthem The Batman’s sequel will send rocketing into our orbit.
