Jen Malone on

Music supervisor Jen Malone is the architect behind some of the most culturally significant soundtracks of the last decade. After having spent years clearing hip-hop for Atlanta , her first major TV credit, Malone was brought into Euphoria, a show that yielded streaming bumps of up to 10,000% for the songs lucky enough to be placed in its episodes.

As her credits grew, so did her business. Malone now helms her own music supervision firm, Black and White Music, an all-women team which she fondly refers to as her “girls,” clearing the songs for soundtracks like Beef, Love Story, Will Trent, Umbrella Academy, Wednesday and more. Though Malone’s career is still thriving, the film/TV business has been inundated with new challenges — including the pandemic shutting down production and the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

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Now, significant consolidation looms as Paramount works through its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. On this week’s episode of Billboard’s On the Record podcast, Malone joined to talk through the changing state of the film/TV industry, her favorite needle drops, why she’s no longer working on Euphoria for season 3 and why music supervision is, in her opinion, “one of the most misunderstood jobs in this industry.”

Watch or listen to the full episode of On the Record below on YouTube, or check it out on other podcast platforms here . Read a segment of the conversation below.

The pandemic, the strikes and new consolidation have made for a tough few years for the film/TV business. What is the general energy like in the industry from your perspective today?

I will always choose to look at optimism, and I do feel that things are coming back. It’s getting a little bit busier. As a music supervisor, it’s kind of a losing battle, because in order to make money, you need to do a lot of projects. In order to do a lot of projects, you need help, you have to pay those people — so you’re right back where you started. The business model is terrible for a music supervisor. So I know it’s still hard for a lot of people, but I think it’s going to keep getting better. At least with television there are a lot of different streamers right now, and they just want to put out content. I think we’re definitely going in the right direction.

What do other people get wrong about music supervision?

I think music supervision is one of the most misunderstood jobs in this industry. We meet on a show before we start shooting, because anything that is on camera — somebody singing in the shower, somebody playing along to the radio, any dance sequence, a band, a wedding band — all of that has to be sorted out and ready to go before we shoot. Music supervisors are one of very few departments that are on from pre-production all the way to the last delivery of the last episode.

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If there’s, say, an episode one where they’re at a party and there’s a band playing, even if it’s just a trio, we have to figure out what song, what arrangement, what we want the band makeup to be. That connects to locations, getting arrangements made and clearing whatever song, then we’re working with casting to find the right people who can play those instruments or mime those instruments, because everything is on a pre-record.

We’re dealing with casting [and props]… it’s definitely a full production job. And what I love now is I’m finding that I’m getting on shows very early.

I’ve heard from music supervisors before that music’s budget is often one of the first things to get cut when a film or TV show goes over budget somewhere else. Is that something you’ve experienced?

I mean yes, but luckily my shows have great post producers and showrunners that will always protect the music budget. Sometimes they’ll squirrel money away in production to give it to us. So I’m in a very lucky position. But most of the time, when budgeting is happening at the top, there’s not really a knowledge base of how songs cost today versus ten years ago. The price of songs has gone up quite a bit, so they’re not budgeting properly, because they’re just not doing it every single day. So budgets are either the same as they were ten years ago or lower. But a lot of my shows — like I said — they know how important music is, they’re passionate about it, and they look out for us.

Was there a certain inflection point where you really saw things get more expensive, or was this gradual over the last ten years?

I think it’s gradual, but I think maybe after the pandemic we were kind of like, whoa, these quotes are coming in super, super high. I think it was gradual, but with a real jump after the pandemic.

Do you think the catalog market has anything to do with that? Catalogs have been changing hands so much more, and obviously when you buy a catalog, you’re hoping to add value to it to make your investment worthwhile.

I actually think it’s the opposite. Artists who might have shied away from synch are much more open to it now.

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They’re still expensive — but Bruce Springsteen should be very expensive. It’s worth it. We used him in Wednesday , and people were like, “How’d you get Bruce Springsteen?” I was like, it was actually an easy clear. I think a lot of artists who were initially more guarded, more hesitant, more priced out, are a lot more open to synch now. I think they’ve seen the power of it. I remember listening to a podcast with Merck [Mercuriadis] about how it’s about the legacy of the artist — maintaining that and finding new fans. And what better way for a new audience to discover Springsteen than a show like Wednesday ? That’s my theory.

One of my favorite synchs you’ve done was pulling “Hold Up” by Beyoncé in season one of Euphoria . I remember doing the math in my head of how many people you’d have to clear the song with to get it. It’s 15 writers and nine producers. How do you decide that it’s worth to go through the tricky licensing process for a song?

That’s up to the showrunner. When there’s a song that a showrunner wants, I will do anything and everything humanly possible to get that song. With “Hold Up,” I mean, it had the Andy Williams sample, it had an interpolation of “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs , and then it had Beyoncé and all of her writers, so it was a monster. But the splits were actually figured out, so there was a lot of paperwork, but it wasn’t a nightmare in that sense.

I think we wrote a letter to Beyoncé because nobody knew what the show was yet, so we had to kind of let her know it was in good hands. It actually wasn’t a tough clear — I didn’t have to track anyone down or put people on the same chain trying to get them to figure out who wrote what percentages of the song.

You worked on Love Story, which is about real people — John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. How do you approach defining characters through song, especially when you’re working with real iconic figures like them?

On a research level with Carolyn, there’s really just nothing on her in general. With John, we know he liked classic rock, so that’s kind of what I had. But it was so much more than just scoring them and giving them their own playlist. I actually didn’t do that for the show, because it was so much more about New York and about their relationship in general — about what was happening in the world at that time. It wasn’t like, this is a John song, this is a Carolyn song. We didn’t look at it that way. I also think that sometimes when you do character playlists, it can get you into a box — you never know where that character is going to be five episodes from now. So I tried not to box myself in with two specific playlists. For this show I kind of just started with my own playlist of my own favorite songs, and started placing them because we were being very period-authentic.

Euphoria has headed into its third season, and there’s been a lot of change — Labrinth is no longer doing the score, and he spoke out publicly about his negative experience there. I haven’t seen your name in the credits for season three. Are you part of Euphoria season three?

I’m not. When they were gearing up for season three, HBO let me know that they were going in a different direction this season, and so we parted ways. But I’m so proud of the work that I did, and I’m very grateful to that show, because it did change my life. I’m grateful to all of the talented people I got to work with, because obviously you cannot watch that show and not have your jaw on the ground at how beautiful it is. And Gabe [Hilfer] is the music supervisor for season three, so I knew they were in good hands, and I just wish them all the best.

Euphoria had the cultural cache to mint huge streaming bumps for many of the songs in its soundtrack. There’s been a real trend recently of film/TV placements breaking songs. Of course the prime example of this was Kate Bush ‘s “Running Up That Hill” climbing the charts after Stranger Things . Probably your biggest viral success was the placement of “Goo Goo Muck” by the Cramps in the show Wednesday. Did you anticipate that that would turn into a huge moment?

That wasn’t the goal, but I thought when I saw the cut, and I saw her dance, and I saw the costume, the dress — I was just kind of like, “people are going to love this.” But getting to where it went? I had no idea. I was also excited because it was also like, “yay, everybody’s going to listen to The Cramps now!” I love them.

You’ve worked alongside some incredible composers. We’ve talked about Euphoria with Labrinth. Now you’re also working on Beef with Finneas who scored its second season. What is the relationship like between a composer and a supervisor?

It’s very different for every show. For some shows, I do work closely with the composer — letting them know what songs we’re thinking about, making sure they have full context for a scene if they haven’t read the script, just being there to help them as much as I can. But sometimes it’s one of those things where I have my hands full with needle drops, and they have their hands full with score, because there’s a lot more score than songs, or vice versa. So we’re kind of just like, okay, good luck, I’ll see you on the other side.

How did you start working on Beef?

With Beef , coming on the show was really special. When I heard they were doing season two, I called my agent and I was like, “You have to get me on this show, you have to get me a meeting — all I need is a meeting…” So I met with [director Lee Sung Jin]. We hung out for like three hours outside a cafe and immediately started sharing music… he absolutely knows music. He used to do a music blog… So it’s been great to just follow his lead on all the placements, and trading music with him has been so fun.

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/pro/billboard-on-the-record-music-supervisor-jen-malone/)._