The night of December 31 marked not only the end of a year, but also that of a decade of fiction. With the broadcast of the last episode of Stranger Things on Netflix, a major page in pop culture was turning. At the same time, another story was taking shape, this time in terms of the music rankings. A few days later, on January 2, Joe Keery, known to the general public for his role of Steve Harringtonpropelled his musical project Djo to the top of Spotify’s global Top 50. Its title End of Beginning
settled at the top, putting an end to 78 days of Taylor Swift‘s reignhitherto firmly established with
The Fate of Ophelia.
Joe Keery, star actor of Stranger Things, driven by a generational phenomenon
However, the success was not unexpected. Originally released in 2022 on the album Decidethe song already had a unique trajectory. A first wave of virality on TikTok in 2024 had brought it very high in the rankings, before gradually falling back. What no one had anticipated was this spectacular second ascent, fueled almost exclusively by the collective emotion provoked by the conclusion of Stranger Things. In a few hours, the tapping got out of control again, until exceed two billion cumulativetransforming this intimate piece into a generational anthem.
The connection between the series and the song was built without a marketing plan or strategic placement. End of Beginning
does not officially appear in the final episode. However, it has established itself as its unofficial soundtrack. On social networks, Internet users associated his words with thefinal trajectory of the charactersmultiplied the montages, rewrote the ending, imagined alternative scenes. The themes of the song, the end of a cycle, new beginnings, entry into adulthood, echoed the feeling of separation experienced by fans after almost ten years of attachment to the series.
A pivotal moment in Joe Keery’s life before filming Stranger Things
What makes this success even more unique is the intimate story of the piece. Joe Keery wrote it in Chicagoat the very end of his studies, just before leaving to film the first season of Stranger Things. At the time, he himself was going through a period of change, leaving one life for another without knowing what awaited him, report our colleagues at Vogue. Years later, this same song symbolically accompanies the end ofadventure that changed its trajectory. For many, it now seems to tell Djo’s story as much as that of the spectators.
Joe Keery’s trajectory is also distinguished by a tasty irony. Without benefiting from the direct musical exposure of the series, he still surpassed one of the most powerful artists in the global industry. Taylor Swift, with whom he also shares the same recording studiohad confided during a meeting in 2024 to appreciate End of Beginning. Two years later, their paths cross again at the top of the rankingsthis time in reverse order.
The transition to a new era for Joe Keery
Far from a simple viral peak, this moment marks a real turning point. The Djo project, long perceived as a parallel field of expression to an acting career, is now asserting itself as a musical identity in its own right. Joe Keery no longer navigates between two worlds. He unites them. His audience no longer follows him just for a role, but for a coherent artistic sensitivityshaped by time, fiction and experience.
By overtaking Taylor Swift at the precise moment when Stranger
Things ends, Joe Keery does not only sign a numerical performance. He embodies this collective passage between two ages, that of adolescence and that of adolescence. End of Beginning thus becomes more than a song. It crystallizes this point of fragile balance between what ends and what begins. In this transition, Djo imposes itself, lastingly, as one of the voices of his generation.
