Various Artists - Stranger Things 5 (Soundtrack From The Netflix Series)

Hawkins signs off in style on Stranger Things 5 (Soundtrack From The Netflix Series), a single LP gathering the needle drops behind the show's final season.

Since 2016, the Duffer Brothers' series has doubled as a crash course in pop history, sending Kate Bush back up the charts and handing Metallica to a new generation along the way. The last chapter keeps that tradition alive with era-perfect hits and older oddities that suit its blend of nostalgia and dread.

The tracklist leaps across decades with a collector's sense of mischief. Michael Jackson's Rockin' Robin and Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now bring bright, bubblegum energy, ABBA's Fernando adds a wistful sway, and David Bowie's Heroes lands with the emotional weight a final season demands. Elsewhere, Iron Maiden, Pixies and Cowboy Junkies keep things wonderfully unpredictable.

A pair of 1950s vocal-group favorites adds a sweetly sinister sheen, the kind of innocent harmony that sounds unsettling once you know what lurks in the Upside Down. Sequenced together, the songs feel like a mixtape made by someone who grew up alongside the kids on screen.

For fans who measure their lives in Hawkins seasons, this is the last tape in the shoebox, pressed to vinyl and ready to replay long after the lights stop flickering.