“Something in the Way” Robert Pattinson leans into being an emo Batman has really connected with audiences. Since the release of The Batman, Nirvana’s Nevermind deep cut — which appears twice in the film as the makeshift theme song for the Kurt-Cobain inspired Bruce Wayne — has seen a massive increase in streaming and sales numbers.
According to Billboard, “Something in the Way” earned 3.1 million on-demand official U.S. streams in the first four days of The Batman’s release, from March 4th through March 7th. In the four days before the film’s release, the song received 372,000 on-demand official U.S. streams, making for a 734% increase over the given period. The largest bounce came between Sunday, March 6th and Monday March 7th, when the track went from 808,000 streams on Sunday, March 6th to 1.5 million — an increase of 86%. By Tuesday, March 9th, the song had cracked the top 5 of Spotify’s Daily USA Top 50 songs ranking.
Those numbers also propelled “Something in the Way” into several Billboard songs charts, including No. 6 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart; No. 20 on the Digital Song Sales chart; and No. 27 on the Billboard Streaming Songs chart.
“Something in the Way” provides the soundtrack to Batman’s earnest monologues in the film, but it first appeared in a trailer for the project way back in 2020. Back then, the song reached reached No. 2 on Rock Digital Song Sales and No. 45 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales ranking.
Director Matt Reeves explained Nirvana’s influence on his noir Batman flick in an interview with Esquire, likening Wayne to Cobain by saying they’re both addicts.
“Early on, when I was writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about [Nevermind song] ‘Something in the Way,’ which is in the first trailer, which is part of the voice of that character,” Reeves said. “When I considered, ‘How do you do Bruce Wayne in a way that hasn’t been seen before?’ I started thinking, ‘What if some tragedy happened [ie: Wayne sees his parents murdered] and this guy becomes so reclusive, we don’t know what he’s doing? Is this guy some kind of wayward, reckless, drug addict?’ And the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He’s like a Batman Kurt Cobain.”
