Stranger Things fame needed for Joe Keery’s song, ex-music publisher says: ‘It’s such a pity’
A former music publisher is praising Joe Keery's End of the Beginning—while lamenting that its fame arrived way too late.
On the father–daughter Instagram account Sign or Decline, a former music publisher listened to “End of Beginning” blind — no artist name, just the track — and said he would’ve signed it on the spot. Only after he vouched for the song did his daughter reveal the singer: Joe Keery, a.k.a. Steve Harrington from Stranger Things .
“But it's such a pity that it needed Stranger Things exposure to become successful because it's such a good song,” he said.
The song’s path backs up that frustration. Released in 2022 under Keery’s music alias Djo, “End of Beginning” barely registered at first. It caught fire much later — going viral in 2024 and spreading as fans clocked that the voice behind the melancholic earworm belonged to Hawkins ’ most overqualified babysitter.
Why the slow burn
Part of the delay may be simple name confusion. Keery has kept his acting and music lanes separate, putting out records as Djo rather than under his own name. Plenty of early listeners loved the track without realizing who was singing it; once they did, streams snowballed.
By 2026 , “End of Beginning” had surpassed 2 billion streams, a monster total that, at one point, even nudged the track ahead of Taylor Swift on Spotify’s global chart. The milestone arrived as Stranger Things was nearing its final chapter — a neat bit of timing for a song about closing one era and starting another. Keery actually wrote it years earlier, after finishing school in Chicago and just before he landed Steve Harrington.
Keery’s path as Djo
Before the solo run, Keery co-founded the Chicago psych-rock outfit Post Animal, playing drums, guitar and singing on their records before stepping away in 2018 as his acting career accelerated. As Djo, he’s built a steady catalog that explains why “End of Beginning” didn’t arrive out of nowhere.
- 2019 — Single: “Roddy” (self-released) under the name Djo
- 2019 — Debut album: Twenty Twenty
- 2022 — Second album: Decide (features “End of Beginning”)
- 2025 — Third album: The Crux (scored a 2026 Grammy nomination for Best Album Cover)
However you found it — through Stranger Things or not — “End of Beginning” is now the song that broke Djo wide open, long after its quiet 2022 release.