MONTREAL, December 28, 2025 — A 20-year-old indie rock track is experiencing a massive resurgence thanks to a moving scene in a new television series, proving that a great song can find its moment even decades after its release. Wolf Parade’s “I’ll Believe In Anything” is currently up 3,000% in Spotify streams and trending on TikTok after being featured prominently in the sports romance Heated Rivalry.
A Hockey Romance Gives Indie Rock a Second Life
The song’s unexpected placement in a pivotal scene has catapulted it back into the cultural conversation.
- “I’ll Believe In Anything” plays during the fifth episode of Heated Rivalry, titled after the song.
- The episode features a hockey player publicly coming out as gay, a moment underscored by the track’s emotional resonance.
- Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug expressed surprise at the song’s renewed popularity, noting the disconnect between his current self and the artist who created it.
- The Heated Rivalry episode briefly tied the perfect 10 IMDb user rating of Breaking Bad’s “Ozymandias” episode.
The song takes center stage during the fifth episode of Heated Rivalry, also named “I’ll Believe In Anything.” The scene depicts a hockey player coming out as gay, sharing a kiss with his partner on the rink immediately after winning the MLH Cup. The emotional weight of the moment is amplified by the song’s melancholic yet hopeful melody.
“For one, the premise of a sexy, gay hockey show sounds fun,” Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug told a Canadian publication about licensing the song for the series. “And two, Jacob Tierney is someone we’re familiar with as a band. I met him before, years ago, when he was first starting up. We talked a little bit then about me doing music for one of his projects. We had no idea that the song would trend the way it is, or that it would be such, like, a main character in [Episode 5.]”
What was the original intention behind “I’ll Believe In Anything”? Krug recently shared on his Patreon that the song began as a “scrappy little love song” written on an upright piano, about a couple willing to take a chance on a fragile relationship. He described it as a song about settling down and facing the realities of love, even considering a fresh start in a new place.
Krug added, “To be honest, it’s like another person wrote the song, because it was so long ago. I don’t really connect with my 25-year-old self any more. We’re all reading work that someone else did. I’ve always had the philosophy that once you record a song and release it into the world, you let it do its thing. It’s interesting to watch. I’m not going to try to control anything. We almost always play it live. I’m curious how this changes the reception of the song. It’s all very surprising.”
The song’s resurgence isn’t limited to streaming numbers. It has been featured in thousands of TikTok videos, further amplifying its reach and introducing it to a new generation of listeners. The Heated Rivalry episode itself has garnered critical acclaim, briefly achieving a perfect 10 rating on IMDb, matching the score of Breaking Bad’s celebrated “Ozymandias” episode.
It was on that upright piano that I wrote the song “I’ll Believe in Anything.” The original is wildly different from the Wolf Parade version it later became. At the time, I wasn’t trying to make anything rock’n’roll, or epic. I was just making another one of my kooky piano songs. For me, it was a scrappy little love song about two people willing to take a chance on their young relationship, even though they’d already screwed up a little bit and its chances of survival were slim. If the singer could just settle down, face the reality of their love, then maybe they could settle down together (“If I could take the fire out from the wire / I’d share a life…”) Maybe they could / should even go somewhere new, start fresh, where nobody knows them. Love is worth trying for, kind of thing. I recorded it with some shitty mics onto my computer, added some loose yet relentless hand claps, and called it a song.
The impact of Heated Rivalry extends beyond the music charts. Viewers have shared their emotional responses to the coming-out scene, praising the show’s representation and the powerful use of “I’ll Believe In Anything.”
