Jen Malone
OPENING NEW WORLDS WITH MUSIC SUPERVISOR
Photos By: Shei Marcelline
Interview + Written By: Nile Brown
Jen Malone’s home is carefully curated with musical mementos. Vinyls fill the shelves, Joe Coscarelli’s Rap Capital lies on the coffee table, and gold records adorn the walls. Billy, Jen’s cat, sweetly rubs against my leg as she gets prepped with hair and makeup for the photo shoot. She asks me how we discovered her work.
Watching Euphoria for the first time, I reminisce about being automatically pulled in by its use of “Hold Up” by Beyoncé during the title card intro. But wait — something sounded different. I rewound and played it again. The opening scene starts with “Can't Get Used to Losing You” by Andy Williams and seamlessly transitions into “Hold Up,” which samples Andy’s classic tune. A brilliant touch that teaches me about the song’s origins and sets the tone for the generation-defining show.
They work in film, TV, brands, and advertising. In 2018, she earned an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Music Supervision for her contribution to Atlanta. Her excellence continued with subsequent nominations in 2020 and 2022 for her work on Euphoria. She clinched the Guild of Music Supervisor Award for Best Music Supervision - Drama for her exceptional work in Euphoria.
Jen started from the bottom and worked to get to where she is now. She was a rock band publicist in Boston for several years. She represented local and international artists, but the intensity of the role led to burnout. She tried to regain creative inspiration by becoming a yoga teacher. But it wasn’t until a music supervisor credit rolled by as an instrumental of “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath played that it was found again.
She packed up her stuff and moved to Los Angeles without any knowledge of the business behind music supervision, film, or TV. From there intense research of the industry ensued: research of all the key music supervisors, the shows they worked on, who their agents were, and the interviews they’ve done. Jen reached out to anyone involved in the spaces she aspired to be in.
Dave Jordan, the music supervisor for the entire MCU (including Iron Man), offered her an internship at age 30. This experience kicked off her career in the industry, “I just read everything that came into the office and tried to soak up all of the knowledge,” Jen says.
She spent the first five years of her career in reality television, calling it ‘music supervision boot camp,’ as she learned the intricacies of production and how to serve a story being told. Then, a friend from her previous life in Boston reached out to see if she could clear a song for Zach Galifianakis’ show Baskets. “She was like, ‘Okay, wait, is this all public domain?
And where can I?
How do I?
Can you just be a music supervisor?’” And just like that, Jen stepped into her first role as a music supervisor for a scripted show.
Fortune favors the bold. Jen’s actions and success with Baskets led to another fortuitous conversation with the same friend. “She came back and said, ‘So, I'm doing this new show; it's gonna be really hard. There's a lot of hip hop, a lot of mixtape artists. It's with Donald Glover.’ That was Atlanta and things just started taking off. Then, that same friend brought me into Euphoria. Atlanta changed my life. Euphoria really, really changed my life. And I've just been working on some amazing projects ever since.”
“You can have the most perfect song in the world for a scene, but if you can't clear it or you can't afford it, you can't use it,” Jen says. Mirroring reality — conflict is central to storytelling. The number one tenet guiding Jen is the showrunner’s vision and how to use music to tell the story but, “Sometimes it's not that easy to find those clearances and approval parties. So you have to become a detective.”
Music supervision is a business. It's more than soundtracking scenes. The clearance aspect of it is crucial (as well as discussing pay rates with songwriters, ensuring copyright holders understand how their music will be utilized, and orchestrating on-screen performances for all involved — the list goes on). “Anytime you see a band playing on screen — that's us. If you see somebody that's singing along to the car radio, that's all music that has to be cleared before you even shoot,” Jen says.
Jen Malone is a music supervisor
in Los Angeles who runs
an all-female
music supervision company
called Black & White.
A Youtube comment reads, ‘She snorted a line and went right back to vibing.’ In Rue’s first scene of season two, she’s en route to a drug deal with Fez and Ashtray, rapping along to “Hit 'Em Up” by 2Pac in the backseat. 2Pac’s estate is very protective of how his music is used in film and TV, so Jen approached them with intention. She sent them a letter about her background and why showrunner Sam Levinson and Zendaya wanted to use the song, along with working with the label and publisher.
Jen says, “All of a sudden, I got a text that said, ‘Hi, this is Molly from the 2Pac estate.’”
“That was definitely a text that I was not really expecting in the middle of the day. They were just absolutely wonderful to work with and understood why we wanted to use the song and straight up, we're like, ‘2Pac would have loved Zendaya, so we're happy to approve the use of the song in the show.’” Jen successfully worked with Jimi Hendrix’s estate, also notably protective of their catalog, to clear a song for The Offer (a period piece about the making of The Godfather). “I think that really helped define the moment in time where The Offer took place.” She’s also landed viral moments placing The Cramps in Wednesday, while simultaneously paying homage to the character's roots by incorporating vintage Latin artists throughout the show.
Jen consistently decenters herself from the music supervision process. “At the end of the day, I want to use your music to help tell a story that either needs to be told or that we're excited to tell... I kind of sometimes look at it as making a mixtape and that scene in Almost Famous where the sister is like, ‘You like that? Listen to this.’”
She immerses and instills an audience with layered storytelling, within every scene she’s involved in. Every song can lend a nostalgic memory, a WhoSampled rabbit hole, a deep dive into a musician’s catalog, or even feelings of love, lust, despair, or hope. The possibilities are endless. Jen continues, “More and more people — kids, adults, whoever’s watching these shows are finding out about these bands and artists that mean so much to us and the team that's made the show. It's kind of opening up a whole new world.”
INTERVIEW + PHOTOSHOOT
Talent: Jen Malone // Interviewer + Writer: Nile Brown // Story Editor: Anna Carlson // Photographer: Shei Marcelline // Makeup: Kelsey Gizelle // Video: Sebastian Cubille // Lead Producer: Nile Brown // Production Company: Santulan Creative