The Queer History Behind the Heated Rivalry Soundtrack

There is a moment in Heated Rivalry that stands as a defining monument of the show’s emerging legacy. Toward the tail end of the fifth episode, the most rewatched episode of an already highly rewatched show, closeted hockey player Scott Hunter calls his secret lover Kip Grady down to the surface of the ice to join him in the televised celebration of the New York Admirals’ triumph. Hunter tells him that he loves him so fucking much before kissing Grady with eager passion. Behind the yearning and the hesitance and the passion of them blares “I’ll Believe in Anything” by Canadian indie rock band Wolf Parade.

A beloved touchstone of the Montreal-based indie rock band’s debut record Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005), “I’ll Believe in Anything” is an angular, propulsive, and beautiful song exploring the fearful yearning of wary hearts. When Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug sings “give me your eyes, I need sunshine,” his voice all frantic and desperate, you can almost taste the sweat on Hunter’s forehead and feel the heat despite the ice of it all. An expertly dropped needle in a show that has been rightfully showered with rapturous praise for a great many things, not the least of which is the soundtrack.

To some, this may seem like a wild swing, using an indie rock song from the early 2000s whose audience is, I would imagine, largely comprised of heterosexual millennials to accent queer love and longing. But this is a wilful misunderstanding of what legacy has been built by the peerless queers who poured our foundations. Indie rock, itself born of alt-rock, punk, and post-punk, has long been informed and built by queerness. R.E.M., led by Michael Stipe, has been a lasting influence on countless ramshackle bands in garages hammering out the chords to “Orange Crush.” Queercore, a subculture created by influential queer icons, like G. B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce, was an active effort to defy the rampant homophobia and bigotry in punk rock. In the early 2000s, bands like The Hidden Cameras emerged from Canadian indie scenes with exuberantly queer energy, all while bands like Deerhunter, Xiu Xiu, Bloc Party, and Grizzly Bear appeared from America and beyond to flesh out the sound of an emerging world.

It’s all the more disappointing then, that queer indie songs are so few and far between on Heated Rivalry’s tracklist. Which is not to say that this legacy of indie rock crafted by defiant queers is absent from the show’s soundtrack. English indie rock band Wet Leg set the tone in episode two with “mangenout” playing behind budding flirtatious moments, while Toronto indie-pop duo Absolute Treat features briefly in episode five with “Bonnie” as the soundtrack to a phone call between Shane Hollander and Rose Landry. But prominent 2SLGBTQ+ artists are lacking, as if queer voices are not properly suited to sing in praise of queer desires.

Indie rock, like so many scenes before it, was built by queers and provided refuge for all who come to it seeking the truth of themselves. To wonder at indie rock’s place in queer love stories is to wonder at the creation of the world. We have been here as long as the sun has warmed the soil, the monoliths and monuments that tell our stories built by our eager, tender hands.

Read more from our Heated Rivalry Series:

• Heated Rivalry Holds Up a Mirror to My Deepest Self • Heated Rivalry Is Millennial Optimism Porn • Heated Rivalry Proves Hockey Has Basically Always Been Gay • Just How Big Is Heated Rivalry? Really Big • The US Is Trying to Annex the Ultra-Canadian Heated Rivalry