In honor of season 5 being right around the corner, I've put together an updated, revised, and more organized version of my original theory.
Prepare to have your mind (and ears) blown by the insane hidden musical connections of:
Soundtrackgate!
It's a long one, but I promise it's worth it. Keep reading to hear some really cool mashups of different ST tracks!
By now, I think most people are aware that the track playing as Mike and El have their awkward kiss at the end of season 3 is the same track that plays as Robin is coming out to Steve. Does this encourage the audience to draw connections between the two scenes, perhaps implying that Mike and El, like Robin & Steve, are incompatible romantically? Quite possibly! But I believe it goes way, way deeper than that. This particular musically-facilitated connection between scenes is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. There's a shockingly expansive rabbit hole hidden within the soundtrack of this show that weaves its way through every single season of Stranger Things and, among other things, ultimately leads (as all things eventually do) to Byler.
Those scenes aren't the only ones suspiciously connected through their music. Another great example is that two of the most iconic Byler scenes; "It was a seven" and the Rink-O-Mania "We're friends!" fight both have tracks playing in the background that are derived from the exact same melodies as two of the biggest RoVickie scenes. This musical link, once you realize it's there, serves to draw some pretty heavy connections between RoVickie (basically a canonically queer relationship at this point) and Byler (a hinted but not yet canon queer relationship).
As one final example, take the track that plays as Will is giving his veiled confession of love to Mike, and the track that plays as Nancy & Jonathan finally explicitly confess their love to one another. These tracks seem unrelated at first, but as I discovered when I layered them on top of each other, they fit together perfectly to create an entirely new piece of music. Yes, I'm serious. The parallel being drawn here between Byler and Jancy as two endgame couples is almost too obvious.
As insane as all these connections are, this is only where Soundtrackgate begins, because these examples are not independent. They are individual points on a vast interconnected web of scenes that follow a similar formula, which are all linked together by the music they have in common.
In order to unravel that web, though, we need to take a step back and look at its most fundamental pieces. Allow me to introduce three tracks to you: The First Lie, Being Different, and Kids.
Each of these songs contain one or two specific musical motifs. These motifs, when included in any song, signify that that song is part of the Soundtrackgate web. They all have a primary motif, which is always a simple repeating sequence of eight notes, but Being Different and Kids also have a secondary motif, which deviates slightly from that pattern. Recognizing the similarities between the primary motifs in each song was actually how I got the idea to look more closely at them in the first place!
See if you can hear them - I've embedded the tracks below:
The First Lie and all its derivative tracks will contain the motif D D# D A# C F A# C
Being Different and all its derivative tracks will contain one or both of the motifs F A# D F A# D F A#, and A# D F D A# D D# D
Kids and all its derivative tracks will contain one or both of the motifs G A# F A# G A# F A#, and F G F D C A# C A#
These three songs form the foundation of my theory because: 1) they're each the first time their respective motif appears in the show, and 2) when layered on top of one another, they sync up, almost as if they're three parts of one larger, grander song. I've embedded all the combinations of these tracks below so you can hear it for yourself! The only editing I had to do was changing the speed so they're all at the same tempo, lining them up correctly, and clipping the beginning & end off of Being Different. It's so unbelievable how seamlessly they mesh, I'm convinced it couldn't have been an accident.
And here are all three of the tracks at once!
So, holy shit, right? There's no way this is a coincidence - it's clear that these three tracks are closely and intentionally related. And I'm inclined to believe that, by extension, any other tracks that are derived from the same motifs inherit that relation too.
We have the basis of this theory laid out, now. There are three songs in the ST soundtrack that all sync up perfectly when layered on top of one another, and each of those songs contains one or two distinctive motifs that can also be heard in any track that's based off of them, which gives us reason to infer that all of those songs are related in some way. With this context, we can zoom out to observe the larger web.
When I discovered the link between the initial songs, I knew I had to figure out whether this was just a case of composers recycling parts of their music, or if the connections I found in the soundtrack had some kind of mirror in the actual story. I made a list of every scene in which the motifs appear, to see if there were any common elements between them, and as I studied them, to my utter disbelief, a pattern actually started to emerge.
The 22 scenes in the show that contains a Soundtrackgate motif all followed the same formula. Some better than others, but every single one of them fit the thematic pattern. This pattern is as follows:
A misassumption or some form of dishonesty.
Love. Often romantic, but sometimes platonic or familial.
A subversion of expectations, either for the audience or for a character.
An atypical/nontraditional relationship between two people.
Often in that order.
So what we have now is a collection of 22 scenes that are jointly connected by their music and by the thematic pattern they follow. The utility of this theory is that, by knowing a particular scene is part of the Soundtrackgate web by virtue of its background music, we can use its expected thematic pattern to better understand what that scene is trying to tell us about the relationship between the characters it involves.
This is where the Byler proof finally comes in, because this pattern is able to support all our interpretations of Byler scenes as hinting towards queerness, thanks to the atypical relationship part of the equation. I'll go into more depth on that in the final section of this post, but before we go any further, I want to present all my evidence for the pattern.
This next section is going to be pretty long. I'm going to go through an exhaustive list of every scene that contains the motifs, and show how the pattern applies in each case. I wanted to include all this raw data so I, and anyone else who wants to check my work, can have an easy way to reference it, but it's not essential that you read through the entire thing. As long as you understand how the pattern works and how it can be used to make inferences about character relationships, you can just skim it. I've done my best to organize it and make it as concise as possible, but I'm adding a star (⭐️) next to all the scenes that explicitly support the Byler agenda, in case you want to scroll past the rest and only focus on what you came here for!
I sorted everything by motif, then into individual music pieces, then into scenes that feature that music. So scenes that have the same track playing in the background are grouped together. For transparency's sake, I also added whether I think the scene matches strongly (🟢), moderately (🟡) , or weakly (🔴) with the thematic pattern, but keep in mind that even the ones with weak matches still have them, just not as explicitly!
So without further ado:
•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••
The First Lie motif
The motif in these tracks is: D D# D A# C F A# C
••●••
Track 1: The First Lie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5-J7BLoIY)
Scene A: Jonathan And Nancy get together (S2E6) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/Dishonesty: Both of them are denying their feelings for each other, • Love: And those feelings are romantic. • Subversion of expectations: They discover that their feelings are requited! • Atypical Relationship: Nancy, a popular and conventionally attractive character, ends up with Jonathan, an outcast.
••●••
Track 2: The First I love You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU0n9fHm2XU)
Scene B: Robin and Steve talk in the bathroom (S3E7) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/Dishonesty: Steve believes he has a chance with Robin, and Robin hasn’t told him the truth about her sexuality. • Love: Steve has feelings for her, she had feelings for Tammy, the two of them love each other as best friends. • Subversion of expectations: Robin likes girls! And Steve, even as a straight guy in the 80s, still accepts her for who she is. • Atypical Relationship: Former douchebag Steve and lesbian Robin form an alliance that is as unlikely as it is touching.
⭐️ Scene C: El Tells Mike she loves him and says goodbye (S3E8) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/Dishonesty: Mike lied in order to avoid seeing her / getting into trouble with Hopper, which damaged their relationship. • Love: El forgives Mike, says that she loves him, and tries to repair their relationship. • Subversion of expectations: El admits to having heard Mike when he said that he loved her, two episodes ago. • Atypical Relationship: It wouldn’t be very atypical for a straight guy to get back with his straight girlfriend after a brief break-up. So in keeping with the pattern we've seen so far, it would be fair to guess that Mike and El's relationship in this scene isn't as simple as it initially appears. Perhaps because they aren't actually going to be compatible in the long run?
Scene D: Joyce and Hopper kiss (S4E9) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/Dishonesty: Up until this moment they’ve been dancing around each other since season 1, not being honest or upfront about how they feel for each other. • Love: But now they finally have their moment and officially get together! • Subversion of expectations: This longstanding will-they-won't-they pair has finally will'd. • Atypical Relationship: The soon-to-come Byers-Hopper family, traumatized and complicated as all its members are, will no doubt be very different from your typical, boring old white-bread nuclear family.
•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••
Kids motif
The motifs in these tracks are: G A# F A# G A# F A#, and/or F G F D C A# C A#
••●••
Track 3: Kids (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha2OcL_0gtM)
⭐️ Scene E: The party's D&D game is cut short (S1E1) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Lucas urges Will to lie to Mike about his roll. • Love: Little Will cares about his friendship with Mike too much to lie to him. • Subversion of expectations: He’s honest, and admits that he only rolled a seven, even if it means he lost the battle. • Atypical relationship: Compared to the rest of their friends, Will and Mike's relationship is special. They value their friendship so much that Will can't bring himself to lie to Mike, even about something small.
Scene F: The kids disguise El so she can go out in public (S1E4) Weak match 🔴 • Misassumption/dishonesty: The gang is disguising El’s true identity so they can bring her to school, which is a form of lying, I suppose. • Love: The boys and El are beginning to trust and care about one another as friends. • Subversion of expectations: El is really pretty after her makeover! This surprises the boys (but Mike specifically). • Atypical relationship: Mike thinks El is pretty and seems enamored by her, even though the rest of the gang is still a little apprehensive about this odd girl.
Scene G: Mike, Lucas, and El make up after their fight (S1E7) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: El had been misleading the boys to keep them away from the lab / Lucas was wrong about El being a "traitor". • Love: The friends are all sorry for what they did. They reconcile, trust restored, cementing their bond. • Subversion of expectations: They’re able to reconcile even after a pretty serious fight. • Atypical relationship: The lovable party of misfits is back together again, stronger than ever.
Scene H: The party finally gets to finish their campaign (S1E8) Weak match 🔴 • Misassumption/dishonesty: The campaign is over too soon, the kids feel like it’s not a truthful finale; there are loose ends left to be resolved in the story. • Love: The friends are finally having fun again, enjoying each others’ company, and healing after that horribly traumatic week. • Subversion of expectations: Will is able to defeat the monster this time! • Atypical relationship: Although the four of them have reunited and are back to playing D&D, they've all gone through a lot of shit, and their bond will forever be changed (and strengthened) by the trauma they share. They will never be able to return to their normal, innocent childhoods.
Scene I: Dustin reminds Mike to look for some change before going to the arcade (S2E1) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Mike refuses to answer Dustin when he asks why he's on an unusual channel on the walkie talkie, and why he hasn’t been looking for quarters to bring to the arcade. • Love: Mike is grieving El. • Subversion of expectations: He hasn't forgotten El - he believes she's still out there and has been trying to contact her all this time. • Atypical relationship: Mike was closer with El than anyone else, and feels the most guilt and grief for having lost her.
••●••
Track 4: Kids Two (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PydvdEdGwE)
Scene J: The kids work together to assemble Cerebro (S3E1) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: The kids don’t quite believe Dustin is being honest about actually having a girlfriend. • Love: But he does! Dustin's dating Suzie. • Subversion of expectations: Suzie doesn’t answer. • Atypical relationship: Two nerds, one mormon and one agnostic. They make a delightfully odd and cute couple.
Scene K: El and Max spy on the boys (S3E3) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: The girls are spying on the guys without their knowledge. • Love: They’re talking about relationship troubles. • Subversion of expectations: They’re doing a terrible job of trying to win El and Max back; putting all the blame on the girls, talking about how they're a "different species". • Atypical relationship: El & Max bond over having dumb ex-boyfriends, even after their friendship's rocky start in the previous season.
Scene L: Robin sees Vickie at Warzone (S4E8) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Robin thinks she has a chance with Vickie. • Love: She’s about to make a move and talk to her crush… • Subversion of expectations: …but Vickie has a boyfriend. • Atypical relationship: Queerness! And the fact that Vickie gets distracted by Robin, probably has a bit of a crush on her too, even though she's currently in a relationship.
Scene M: Robin & Vickie make sandwiches (S4E9) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Robin is fairly certain now that she DOESN’T have a chance with Vickie. • Love: But unbeknownst to her, they're almost definitely an endgame couple. Vickie is crushing on her too. • Subversion of expectations: Vickie admits that she ended things with her boyfriend. • Atypical relationship: Cute sapphic love in the 80s!
••●••
Track 5: Teens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3JICAZAEBs)
Scene N: Suzie changes Dustin’s Latin grade (S4E1) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Suzie and Dustin are cheating his Latin grade by hacking into the school’s computer system. • Love: Dustin & Suzie are still dating. • Subversion of expectations: Suzie decides that her relationship with Dustin is worth more than being entirely morally virtuous, despite her mormon upbringing, so she changes the grade for him. • Atypical relationship: Yet again, a delightfully odd and adorable couple.
••●••
Track 6: In The Closet (At Rink O Mania) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwl-HPNQFLc)
⭐️ Scene O: Mike and Will argue at the roller rink (S4E2) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Will and El haven’t been honest with Mike about the bullying El's been facing. • Love: Will misses his best friend and is upset that their relationship over the past year has been limited. And he’s in love with him. • Subversion of expectations: Mike gets weirdly defensive when Will asks "And us?" It seems that Mike has been struggling to understand his relationship with Will too. • Atypical relationship: Queerness! We get a huge hint here that the feelings between them are not actually one-sided.
Scene P: …but also El hides in the closet at the roller rink (S4E2) Moderate match 🟡 • Misassumption/dishonesty: El had been hiding the fact that she was being bullied. • Love: This lie has driven a wedge even deeper between her and her boyfriend, and ruined what was supposed to be a nice date. • Subversion of expectations: She decides to confront Angela. • Atypical relationship: El finally decides to stand up to her bully after months of enduring her awful treatment, and switches the power dynamic in her favor.
••●••
Track 7: Home (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdcV1u6RUh4)
Scene Q: Hopper takes El to his grandfather's old cabin (S2E3) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Hopper wants to keep El's location a secret / He discreetly puts away a box labeled “Sarah”, hinting at a more personal reason for taking her in that he's not revealing. • Love: He cares about El like he’d care for his own daughter. • Subversion of expectations: Deep down, Hopper's a loving father figure underneath his tougher-looking exterior. • Atypical relationship: Found family!
Scene R: Dustin Apologizes to Lucas (S2E8) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Lucas denies that Max is his girlfriend. • Love: Dustin says he could feel the "electricity" between Lucas and Max. • Subversion of expectations: Dustin caught on to Lucas and Max's budding relationship. Atypical relationship: Interracial romance!
Scene S: Mike and Max talk about El (S2E8) Moderate match 🟡 • Misassumption/dishonesty: The party had been refusing to tell Max the truth about El. • Love: Lucas trusted her and cared about her enough to tell Max the truth / Max is trying to reach out and befriend Mike. • Subversion of expectations: Mike is surprised & upset that she knows the truth / Even after appealing to Mike's love for El, Max's attempt to reach out to him was still unsuccessful. • Atypical relationship: Mike is uniquely distrustful of Max. Unlike Lucas and Dustin who have been more welcoming, he's still acting coldly towards her and enforcing the rule that she cannot join the party.
Scene T: This song also plays during the scene where Robin sees Vickie at Warzone (S4E8) Strong match! 🟢 • [See Kids Two, scene L]
••●••
Track 8: What’s The Internet? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqx4idF4ObE)
Scene U: The Hellfire Club and Lucas’ team celebrate their victories (S4E1) Moderate match 🟡 • Misassumption/dishonesty: The basketball team and the Hellfire club both thought they were about to lose their respective games. • Love: Despite the looming potential for failure, everyone’s having fun and feeling included within their groups; they love their hobbies and their friends. • Subversion of expectations: Both teams pulled through, despite the odds! • Atypical relationship: Erica, despite being the young newcomer, is accepted into the group and brings the party to victory / Lucas, despite previously being a bit of an underdog, rises to the occasion and suddenly becomes his team's hero.
••●••
Track 9: (Unreleased song, but a very drawn out version of the secondary Kids motif is audible once towards the end)
⭐️ Scene V: El and Mike argue over Mike being unable to say “I love you” (S4E3) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/dishonesty: Mike’s refusing to acknowledge that he can’t say the words, and is lying about how he really feels for El. • Love: Their relationship as boyfriend/girlfriend is finally starting to show cracks, which are being forced to the foreground during this argument. • Subversion of expectations: Their relationship isn’t as perfect as we’ve been encouraged to believe. • Atypical relationship: Although they’re on the verge of a breakup, that might be what's best for the two of them, because ultimately they are better as friends than as partners.
•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••
Being Different Motif
The motifs in these tracks are: F A# D F A# D F A#, and/or A# D F D A# D D# D
••●••
Track 10: Being Different (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o29YLtS_NA)
⭐️ Scene W: Mike and Will talk in the pizza van (S4E8) Strong match! 🟢 • Misassumption/Dishonesty: Will lies about the meaning behind the painting for Mike, substituting his name for El’s to hide his own feelings. • Love: Those feelings are his love for Mike :’( • Subversion of expectations: We finally get our big reveal that Will is canonically gay and in love with Mike. • Atypical Relationship: It wouldn't be very atypical if this was simply a gay kid coming to terms with the fact that his feelings for his straight friend are unrequited. If this scene were to follow the established pattern, it might suggest that there's more here below the surface, and it's probably the fact that Mike feels the same way for Will.
••●••
Right now, the Being Different motifs only exist in their original song and haven't been used elsewhere, because they only very recently appeared at the end of season 4. But I am rock-solid certain that we're going to start hearing them show up in the soundtrack of season 5, and this list is going to expand with every new episode that releases over the coming months.
•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━━━━━━ ••
Okay, that's all of them! With how strikingly the vast majority of these scenes match, I hope I've convinced you that I'm justified in claiming there's a connection between hearing a Soundtrackgate motif in a scene, and seeing that scene follow a specific thematic pattern.
There are probably a lot of really cool ways to apply this information that I haven't even thought of. Using this interpretive lens to examine other relationships could potentially reveal or confirm any number of different things! But at the end of the day, I know where my priorities lie, so let's make it about Byler.
Like I said earlier, the fact that we know all these scenes feature an atypical / unconventional relationship is the key to understanding how this theory supports a Byler interpretation. If we take a closer look at the relevant scenes, we see that they make the most sense and match the thematic pattern closest when it's assumed that Mike and El are incompatible romantically, and Mike and Will are the endgame pair.
When El kisses Mike at the end of season 3, it isn't meant to be taken at face-value. There's something atypical about their relationship, and it's the fact that despite saying the words, it doesn't change the fact that neither of them are in love with each other, not romantically, even if they think they should be.
When Will tells Mike he rolled a seven and lost the battle in the first episode of season 1, it's more than just Will being an honest kid. There's a deeper connection- something atypical compared to Will's relationships with his other friends, because the two of them are, have always been, and will always be, uniquely close.
During their fight at Rink-O-Mania in season 4, they're not just arguing about Will being dishonest or Mike not staying in touch. There's something deeper under the surface that they're dancing around, unaddressed feelings on both ends, something more atypical than just two friends who drifted apart. At the root of their frustration is the fact that they both believe the other doesn't feel the same.
Mike said it himself- when he and El argue over the fact that he can't say "I love you" to her, this was a fight they can't come back from. Because it's been made clear to them that their relationship isn't romantic anymore, it's atypical in the sense that they realize this whole thing between them has just been a heteronormative charade they were pressured into, rather than something they really wanted or needed.
When Will delivers his veiled love confession in the back of the van in season 4, we're led to believe that this is him ripping off the bandaid, because Mike is supposedly happiest with El and he'll never see Will the way Will sees him. But this interpretation is incorrect, because there's something very very atypical about the way Mike stares longingly into Will's eyes, completely mesmerized, in a way that he's never looked at his own girlfriend. Mike is in love, but there's no denying anymore that the love he feels is for Will, not El - even if he hasn't admitted that to himself yet.
All of these interpretations are things we've known and have been discussing for a very long time, yes. But the beauty of Soundtrackgate is that it connects all of them together with a common thematic and musical thread so strong that it extends beyond Byler. It makes it overwhelmingly apparent that this relationship is aligned with what Stranger Things is trying to communicate about people and relationships as a whole - that choosing to forge your own path in life instead of just conforming to what's expected of you will ultimately make you a stronger, better, and more fulfilled person, even if you have to fight tooth and nail for it.
~
Before I end this post, I want use what I've learned over the course of building this theory to make a few predictions about season 5, because what good is a theory if it can't be tested? If one or more of these things happen, which I'm fairly certain they will, I'll know I was on the right track.
The Soundtrackgate motifs will continue to make appearances in season 5, just as they have been in all the previous seasons.
The scenes these motifs appear in will continue to follow the thematic pattern of Misassumption/dishonesty > Love > Subversion of expectations > Atypical relationship.
Important Byler scenes will prominently feature these motifs.
Byler scenes will primarily feature an equal mix of the Kids and Being Different motifs, with The First Lie motif being less common, if it's used at all.
And if I was feeling really lucky, I'd say that we're going to get at least one example of a single track containing motifs from multiple songs, like a track that features motifs from both The First Lie and Kids, or Kids and Being Different, etc. Hearing that actually happen in the show might be the only thing that could get me more excited than canonical Byler.
Finally, here are some miscellaneous things I wanted to mention:
I implied it several times, but I want to be explicit here: I'm NOT trying to claim that this whole web of connections between tracks and scenes is exclusively a grand conspiracy to hint at Byler. These are not the "Byler motifs". They're more like the "complicated interpersonal relationship" motifs, so they just happen to apply to Byler very well. You could use Soundtrackgate to argue for Jancy, if you wanted to!
I don't literally believe that the writers and composers of this show got together and said to themselves "We need to come up with a specific pattern that all the scenes containing this specific set of motifs will follow!". Instead, what I think I've found is generally a common "idea" shared by related scenes, and defining a pattern in order to describe and explain it is the best way I have of communicating that commonality to you.
When I mention "primary" and "secondary" motifs in the song, I do NOT mean "more important" and "less important". Both of the motifs from Kids are used equally as often! It's just a way of differentiating between motifs that strictly follow a simple repeating 8-note sequence, like the one in The First Lie, and motifs that don't.
I know there's been discussion in the past about Being Different syncing up with the song that plays during Mike's monologue to El, You're The Heart. I checked this myself, and came to the conclusion that it is not true. In the original video that introduced this idea, Being Different was far louder than You're The Heart, and completely drowned it out. By changing the volume so you can actually hear both tracks at the same time, it becomes clear that there's no link between them - they unfortunately just sound like a muddy mess when properly layered. If anyone wants to hear it, I'd be happy to upload or send the audio!
As I was searching through tracks to build my analysis, I noticed that Eight Fifteen and Presumptuous both share a motif. This motif sounds similar to the secondary Kids motif, but isn't the same. These tracks might be worth looking into, even if they aren't part of Soundtrackgate.
There are a few songs that I agonized over for a while, because if I really stretched what counted as hearing a motif, I could've fooled myself into believing they were in there. But ultimately, none of them were convincing enough, especially compared to the other songs that all featured their motifs very clearly. The songs were A Kiss, Boys and Girls, & Blank Makes You Crazy, if you want to check them out. Boys and Girls does actually show up in SEVERAL scenes that are basically textbook examples of the thematic pattern...
That's all I have for now. Thank you SO much for giving this monster of a theory a chance, because I poured my heart and soul into it and I'm BURSTING with excitement to see where it goes in season 5. The 26th cannot come soon enough.
If you want to look into the soundtrack of Stranger Things yourself, I HIGHLY recommend using what-song.com. It has a list of all the tracks that appear in each ST episode, in order, complete with listing what minute each song appears in, providing a 30-second sample of each song, and a description of the scene that occurs during it. It would've been impossible for me to write this without having the website as a resource.
Happy theorizing!
~ ~ ~
Tl;DR:
There are three tracks in Stranger Things that sync up perfectly when layered on top of one another, implying that there's an intentional connection between them.
Those tracks each contain specific motifs which also appear in tracks that are derived from them. Since the derivative tracks are connected to the originals, and the originals are connected to each other, an argument can be made that all the tracks which contain the motifs are connected.
Every scene in Stranger Things that features one of these motifs in the background follows a similar thematic pattern, suggesting that there's a link between the motifs and the pattern.
Multiple scenes relevant to Byler contain these motifs, and thus should be expected to follow the thematic pattern.
The thematic pattern supports a Byler interpretation of these scenes, which implies that we're correct in reading queer subtext into their interactions.
