“It’s a common misconception that a music supervisor’s job is to just sit around and listen to music all day,” says Jen Malone. With her team (“the best women in the music supervision world: Whitney, Nicole, Sarah, and Hailey”) she masterminds song selection for the shows and films that generate the most awe around their soundtracks—Euphoria, Yellowjackets, Atlanta, and Zola, to name a few—and explains that “music supervisors are one of the very few department heads that are there from day one until that episode is delivered,” sometimes days before airtime.
From the moment they see the script, all music—whether a background song in a store or person singing—will need to be cleared. “You can have the most perfect song for the scene, but if you can’t clear it or you can’t afford it, you cannot use it.” It’s the “unsexy” side of the job: “We tackle all music issues that come up. And when you have shows like I work on, that are super heavy with music, they will always come up.”
At the start, her team feeds every song that could work for the show into a giant Spotify playlist. Working with labels and publishers, they get songs in, and send to video editors to try. “I’m a very visual person, so it’s important to see the scene.” Ideas from script-reading can get flipped after seeing “the pacing, the tone, the performance, how the scene is actually cut.” A bar’s aesthetic might change the songs playing there. Even the colors—Euphoria’s blue-purples and Yellowjackets’s yellow and earth tones—are a factor in a show’s musical identity. Songs sometimes reflect where a character is at: “For example, you’re gonna see a lot more of Lexi and her story in this Euphoria season, and the Laura Les song she played in [Episode 2, called “Haunted”] was a nod to her character’s evolution.”
Composing is a separate beast, and for Euphoria, Malone’s team don’t cross over much with Labrinth. And—if you were wondering—Drake supports the show more broadly, and isn’t involved in the nitty-gritty of music selection.
Some shows are easier for Malone. “Yellowjackets was all in the mid-’90s. I’m from New Jersey; I was in high school. Boy, it was great,” she grins. “I can give options all day… we haven’t even scratched the surface.” Euphoria’s next episode (S2, E3) is “where I’m at personally, musically—what I’ll listen to on my own.”
Previously a publicist for rock bands like Nine Inch Nails, Portishead, and Chemical Brothers, one day Malone “watched Iron Man, and I was like, ‘Okay, I want to be a music supervisor.’ I just packed up my stuff and moved, not knowing anything about music supervision at all.” She took on reality TV gigs before a producer friend asked her to help out on Baskets, then returned with another offer. “It’s gonna be a lot of hip hop, very clearance-intensive, and I don’t have a lot of money, but it’s Donald Glover,” Malone recalls her saying. “I was like, ‘Sign me up.’ I don’t know the name of the show, but I’m in.” That was of course Atlanta, after which Janicza Bravo, who directed some episodes, asked her to come on board her film, Zola. Ever since, Malone’s company has continued with its Midas streak—which sometimes blindsides even her. “Yellowjackets taking off has been crazy. Just word-of-mouth blew up. We’re still like, ‘Yellowjackets, huh? What the fuck!’ You never, ever know.”
This year is huge for Malone, with the third season of Atlanta, The Offer, and WeCrashed all set for release. The music supervisor tells Vogue more about what to expect, below.
Vogue: How much music is written into Euphoria?
It’s a team effort. I mean, me picking out every single song in this show is physically impossible, when you have like 30-plus songs in an episode. A lot of our editors are so great with music. Sam Levinson writes to music, is insane with his knowledge of music, so he scripts quite a lot. Gerry Rafferty was written into the script so that was something we cleared before we even shot the scene. There was always a musical number scripted at the end of Season 1, but originally it was going to be a different song—I can’t say what. But then Labrinth was writing music for the show and Sam fell in love with “All for Us” and used it as a theme. We had it in a lot of different episodes, whether it was a cappella or instrumental, so it finally culminated with the big musical number at the end.
Will there be a musical number in season two?
[Smiles.] No spoilers!
Some viewers are surprised at the teens’ love of ’90s rap; what was your take?
Sam Levinson makes the decisions on the music, tone, and vibe, and we didn’t want to repeat ourselves from last season. And I think music today is kind of in an interesting spot. Some of it is missing that fun energy and bounce, like Juvenile and Notorious B.I.G. Anyway, they’re bangers and they’re timeless! I don’t know if it’s fair to say that none of Gen Z is listening to Notorious B.I.G. If that’s the case, they’re missing out. Here you go from *Euphoria—*our gift to you to dig into these classics. Kids can definitely have more fun at parties if they start playing some.
How do you see Euphoria’s musical identity?
Anything goes with Euphoria. You can do undiscovered artists like Laura Les in Episode 2—which blew up! I’m so happy, there’s nothing like her and her band 100 Gecs. Way, way, way back, Sam was super into 100 Gecs, so when I found that song, I was like, “We have got to get this in the show.” That is one of the best parts of my job, that element of discovery [for viewers]. But whether it’s Megan Thee Stallion or Laura Les or Gerry Rafferty—who is also having this huge resurgence…even Tupac! Tupac’s label called, like “the numbers we’re seeing are insane.”
Can suggesting and trying out tracks in scenes get kind of endless?
The opening of Season 2 of Euphoria, we tried a lot of different songs as that first for Grandma—a lot of catalogue artists, so we’re dealing with estates and potentially older copyright owners. That scene had everything: nudity, drugs, sex, guns, violence. All of the red flags! Some artists and songwriters might not be cool with their music used over a scene with explicit content. A lot of songs were flat-out denied. When we landed on “Don’t Be Cruel,” I worked with the company that reps the [Elvis] Presley estate to handle with care for approval. That was a very difficult spot. Songwriters, their songs are their babies, we have to be respectful of how they want this piece of them to live, or what an estate wants as the legacy. Like Beastie Boys will never have their song in an ad, some will never have their song over violence or over sex scenes.
And that first episode had so many songs!
I feel seen and so grateful to the Twitterverse for acknowledging what we went through with the Succession meme of Roman being like, “Okay. FUCK! Okay”—which is exactly what we go through on a daily basis. When we delivered the premiere, it was very much like, “Oh, my God, I’m exhausted.” It was a party episode, so we knew there was going to be a lot of music. Sam wanted that Tupac song in there, and I had to have a lot of discussions with the Tupac estate, who are wonderful and lovely. They believe that Tupac would have loved Zendaya and would have been such a fan of hers. I really admire and respect them because they are very conscious of “Would ’Pac like this?”
Everyone went crazy over the use of “Only Time” by Enya in the Yellowjackets finale.
We knew we wanted Enya from the start. She is a very difficult clear, and it was originally denied. Everybody was super bummed out. We went through a bunch of alts but they weren’t Enya. I said to my showrunners, write a letter to the publishing company about why this song is important to you. They wrote such a beautiful, eloquent letter, but we didn’t hear from them. Then, two days before the time to deliver the show, no turning back, we got an email that she approved. It was super close to Christmas, so I was like, “Merry Christmas, guys!” We were so grateful. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the fact that the show was starting to get a lot of buzz—no pun intended—because again, this was the finale, we were working up against air. We were all so happy to end on that note of getting everything that we wanted in the show.
A triumphant finale in itself! The teaser for the most recent Euphoria episode had a new Lana Del Rey song. Tell me about that.
That came from our soundtrack partner, Interscope Records, who we’ve been working with to get new, unreleased songs for the show, and that was one of them. I sent that over to our editor, like, “We need to find a home for this one.” It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s Euphoria. You’ll see it this week!
So we should expect a lot more unreleased music throughout the season?
I don’t want to spoil anything, except that three is my favorite episode. I had so much fun on that episode. The story that Sam is telling this season is amazing. We’re all very proud of the music, and how that helps tell the story.
What are your research go-tos?
Instagram. SoundCloud. Twitter. Twitch. This one DJ, his name is Jake Rudh, has this show on Twitch—which I still don’t even know how to use, only put on. He plays a lot of ’80s and ’90s new wave. Discogs is always helpful, especially with catalogue stuff. Research is so much a part of our job. We’ll end up learning anything and everything about a genre. Or need to find a label that was only active from ’67 to ’69. I literally print out whitepages.com, crossing out phone numbers trying to find a person. When the writer has passed, you can’t just find the estate doing a quick Google search. As morbid as it sounds, we rely a lot on obituaries. It will say survived by, and you see what local paper it’s in, then I can search the relatives, and make a lot of really strange calls. I’m convinced I have a second career in private investigation.
Does your job change how you watch films and TV?
Oh my God, yes. Even my husband, who hears me talking about it so much, will be like “How much do you think that cost?” And I’m like, “Oh, he’s an easy clear.” And I notice the good placements— I remember Sex Education Season 1 had this Tone Loc “Wild Thing” placement that was so fucking funny, I couldn’t stop laughing. I emailed the supervisor immediately, like “Stop! Brilliant. Nice work.” And For All Mankind used “Back in Black” by AC/DC over a really long sequence. As a viewer I was like, “Yes!” As a music supervisor, I know how difficult and how expensive AC/DC is. It’s a small community, and I immediately texted the supervisor like, “Worth every penny.” I May Destroy You, I thought was absolutely beautiful, beautiful work. Trying to think what else I’ve watched… I’m too tired at night to watch TV any more. I’m exhausted!