With ‘Yellowjackets’ and ‘Euphoria,’ Music Supervisor Jen Malone Has Become a Television Tastemaker
variety.comLily Moayeri It’s late on a Friday afternoon and as the working week draws to a close, music supervisor Jen Malone is invigorated.
The cause for celebration? An email she had been waiting for just arrived, marking the last clearance for a song to be used in the season finale of HBO’s “Euphoria.”Malone’s needle drops for the music-heavy series helped make “Euphoria” a social-media phenomenon, trending on a weekly basis as two million-plus tune in.
Those viewers are also holding their phones toward the screen with the Shazam app open, looking to capture every song.Malone — who has been nominated for two Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, both in the same category: music supervision for film budgeted under $5 million, for “Malcolm & Marie” and “Zola” (alongside Nicole Weisberg and Mandi Collier) — spends Sunday evenings glued to HBO herself.
And in a case of life meets art, she was also watching her other ear-candy series, Showtime’s “Yellowjackets,” which is set partially in the present time, and partially in 1996 New Jersey. “Both shows have a very different tone and way they use music to tell the story,” says Malone, who has placed such disparate choices as Bo Diddley, Poison and Steely Dan all in the same episode of “Euphoria,” and artists such as Tracy Bonham and Belly in “Yellowjackets,” which she co-supervises with Whitney Pilzer.Says Malone: “ ‘Yellowjackets’ is a love letter to the ’90s.
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