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True Detective viewers are making the same complaint following the return of the HBO drama.
The anthology series is back for its fourth outing, titled True Detective: Night Country, which began on Sunday (14 January) with Jodie Foster and Kali Reis in the lead roles.
Reviews of the new season have been positive, with many praising the central performances – and going so far as to hail it as good as the hugely acclaimed first season, which aired in 2014 and starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
However, there’s one complaint being levied against the show, and it’s to do with its opening titles – more specifically, the song of choice.
To date, each season of True Detective – including the derided second outing – has been praised for its credits song. Season one was the handsome Family’s “Far from Any Road”, while Leonard Cohen track “Nevermind” opening season two’s episodes.
In season three, which starred Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff, the opening music was Cassandra Wilson’s cover of Son Hous track “Death Letter”, which meant season four had a lot to live up to. The song in question is Billie Eilish’s “Bury a Friend”.
While it’s not the quality of the track that is leaving people underwhelmed, there is a question mark surrounding how it made the cut considering the fact it’s used in so many others films and TV shows.
The song, from Eilish’s 2019 debut record When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was most recently featured in the trailer for Madame Web, the Sony Spider-Man spin-off starring Sydney Sweeney, among other things, featured in the trailer for Carnival Row and Night Swim.
TV viewers could also hear the song in shows The Society, Dickinson and Big Mouth, as well as the films Kimi, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and Sing 2.
One viewer wrote: “My only ‘real’ gripe is that they chose that Billie Eilish song for the theme. I like Eilish! It’s a good song! But it’s SO overdone for every single trailer/score. NEW SONGS, PEOPLE. PLEASE.”
Jodie Foster in ‘True Detective: Night Country’
(HBO)
Another added: “Billie Eilish for the new True Detective intro song is…. a choice that was made…” with one more viewer wading in: “There’s like 10 needle drops in the new True Detective and they’re all so boring and colourless but worse than all of them combined is the title sequence song, which is the same Billie Eilish song they used in the Madame Web trailer.”
True Detective is available to watch in the US on HBO and in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW.