Music supervisor Jen Malone (photo courtesy of Neil Favila).
Netflix has another hit on its hands with newly-released series Wednesday, a spin-off of the Addams Family franchise. The show, which sees Addams daughter Wednesday heading to a magical boarding school, has remained inside the streamer’s top 10 since it premiered in late November, and it has become so popular, its success is bleeding into other entertainment industries as well.
Two of the songs featured in Wednesday have gone viral, and both are enjoying real, quantifiable surges in popularity. The first of the two to enjoy a massive boost in consumption was The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck,” which was initially released in 1981 to little fanfare. The week following Wednesday’s premiere, the song’s streams grew by more than 8,650%, (according to Billboard) when compared with the average number of plays it received per week for months prior. The band also appeared on a number of Billboard charts for the first time with the tune—more than a decade after they split—thanks to the feature.
As if one viral moment wasn’t enough for the series, another more recent track has also been picking up steam rather quickly after fans watched its inventive use in Wednesday. Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary”—initially a non-single from her 2011 album Born This Way—has become a must-copy dance craze on TikTok. In fact, even Gaga herself got in on the fun, making even more of this moment.
The team behind these syncs—led by music supervisor Jen Malone—is just as shocked as the rest of the world seems to be by the incredible reception the soundtrack has received. In a conversation about the success of Wednesday and the music featured in the show, Malone promises vitality was not a goal, but merely “icing on the cake”—only, make that two servings.
Hugh McIntyre: Tell me about how you began this process of finding the right music for Wednesday and how long ago it began.
Jen Malone: MGM, who I’ve worked with before, called me and was like, “We’d love to put you up for Wednesday Addams. It’s for Netflix
But we were both so, so, so stoked and so excited for the meeting. We met with [creators] Alfred [Gough] and Miles [Millar], the showrunners. We all clicked really well, and we got the gig. We started probably a month before shooting started, because we had a lot of on cameras that we had to sort out. Specifically, to start off in episode one, we had “Paint It Black”.
We had to get that song cleared and then created and then approved by everybody and then get it to Jenna [Ortega] and her cello teacher to start learning. So we had to start with that as well as the a capella stuff. A lot of people don’t realize how intense music supervisors’ work is. When you have something like an on camera where the conversation is, you know, how many people are going to be singing? Okay. What do they look like? What’s the breakdown? How many boys, how many girls? Do you want this song to be super perfect or do you want it to be a little more “hype”? You really get into the nitty gritty of matching what you’re hearing to what you’re seeing, showing our music contractor the headshot so they can match the voices.
McIntyre: Wow.
Malone: But I think it’s important. We work with everybody. We work with props, making sure that everything you’re seeing on screen is matching what you’re hearing. And vice versa! Everything is either mimed or lip synced whenever you see something. People don’t realize that. They just see the sexy Cramps moment. They don’t see all the other things that happen. That is all under the music supervision team, including casting, props, sound, and the overall vision from the director and showrunners.
McIntyre: Jenna seems like she was so…involved doesn’t even do it justice. It seems like she went above and beyond. Was she at all involved in the discussion of the music?
Malone: Jenna was extremely committed to this show, in every which way, shape, or form. She did create a cello playlist of some of the classical pieces that she loves. We got that from the showrunners. With the dance scene in [episode] 104, how it works is we get the creative, we put together options, and we present, usually four to five options. How that, what happened was…we’d always had The Cramps on our Wednesday playlist, between myself and Nicole. Originally we pitched “Human Fly”.
They shot in Budapest, so we were very distant, but you know, we pitched that. From what I understand, there was a kind of collaboration and then they ended up like, “Well what about ‘Goo Goo Muck’?” So they really spring boarded off of that. And I remember being like, “Oh my God, that’s perfect!” So it truly is a collaboration, and I know that Jenna was very involved in that one as well as the cello pieces for sure. “Paint It Black” was scripted in from the very beginning.
McIntyre: I imagine there are shows you go into where it’s a blank slate and you can help decide the tone and the type of song, whereas with a Tim Burton production of the Addams Family, it’s kind of built in. Was that the case with this one?
Malone: Everybody was very open to our ideas. Al, Miles and Tim would give us overviews, really digging into the vintage female Latin kind of sound. That was something that we discussed in our first meeting. We took that and dug into it and did the research to come up with playlists and try to figure out what we can pitch. Also, obviously, what is clearable is always important. We always keep that in the back of our minds when we’re pitching music, because the last thing we want to do is pitch a song that can’t get cleared.
The Roy Orbison [sync] came from Tim, a hundred percent, and “Paint It Black” was scripted in. But some of them, we’d get to the spot and, with the show evolving [in terms of] what it’s gonna look like and the performances from the characters… The sound of the show…it’s a very organic process.
I did The Offer, which was period-based, so that had a little bit more structure, whereas, this one was kind of like…let’s try different things. Sometimes it’s, “No, we’re not into any of these. Give us more, maybe do something like this.” It’s like, okay, great. Let’s pivot. Finding out what you don’t want and what doesn’t work is just as valuable as what does work. Each show is very different, and it depends on the creators.
McIntyre: This is a really interesting moment for music supervisors when the best of the best are receiving attention because of a number of factors. The right sync can produce a hit and it becomes a phenomenon. Is anyone coming to you and saying, as you go through this process, we’d love one of those moments. Whether it’s an original song or a placement, is anyone suggesting that would help?
Malone: No. We are there to serve story. We are there to support the showrunner’s vision. That’s really the only thing that we’re doing. Something going viral is just icing on the cake. If something happens to connect, like the way Kate Bush [‘s sync in Stranger Things] did…that’s just icing on the cake, but that is not what we set out or our showrunners set out to do.
McIntyre: I like hearing that, because I know having original songs in films can be to service the vision, but sometimes it can be part of the marketing. Everything would be helped by a hit. I don’t think that detracts necessarily, but I like hearing that no one from Netflix is whispering in your ear.
Malone: Absolutely not. We’re not in that business. We’re in the business of making TV shows and telling stories. We’re not in the business of making songs go viral. Like, Netflix, no MGM, no studio, no network, no showrunner, no executive has ever been like, we want to create a moment.
McIntyre: You said The Cramps were on your playlist from day one.
Malone: Yes.
McIntyre: Is the same true about Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary”?
Malone: No. I tried to retrace those steps and I think it goes back to one girl on TikTok that did the dance and just…none of us have any idea where it came from. I actually didn’t know about it until a friend at Interscope sent it to me. I went on TikTok and I was just like, “Holy…where did this come from?” It’s great, having the fans create their own music moments.
McIntyre: You were saying on The Offer, it’s of a time, of an era, whereas The Cramps and Lady Gaga, they work together thematically. When you’re working on a project, do you find it easier when you are constrained by something like a specific decade? Or is it easier when you can just pull from anywhere?
Malone: That’s a great question. The Offer was 1968 to 1972—when the show took place—so obviously we had parameters. I think that does make it easier, logistically, in that only a certain amount of music was released in those years. That’s opposed to other shows where it’s kind of like, anything goes. That can kind of be daunting when it’s like, where do we start? And that’s when we get inspired and get in the character’s heads and really go deep into the story and what the song is, how it’s functioning in the scene, how it’s functioning in the episode and the series as a whole. If something is like two years later, you can’t really cheat it. People will know. And we want to stay true to the story.
McIntyre: How did you feel, first of all, seeing these songs explode and knowing it’s directly because of your work? And also—Lady Gaga hopped on this trend and did a dance of her own song because it became so popular. How do you process that?
Malone: Well, it’s not because of something that I did. It’s so much bigger than me and I don’t take credit for it at all. I think it was so much of the dance. I think it was the dress. I think it was her hair. I think it was just the whole package, and this song being one element.
McIntyre: Have you seen that she’s testing the waters now to properly push it as a single? It’s been sent to radio in Europe.
Malone: [Laughing] I dunno what to say. What makes me happy is…the Saturday after we aired, I took a screenshot of The Cramps’ Spotify page that had the amount of listens. I guess it was the Saturday [after Wednesday premiered], it had like 6 million something. I think the last time I checked it was like… I’m just going to check right now because that is cool to see. We’re at 15 million listens and it was at 6.8 million when we premiered. Like that is cool.
I think it’s the accessibility that the kids have these days, that people have these days for the immediate, “What song is this,” and being able to go and find it and unlock this door. Maybe from The Cramps they’re gonna find Siouxsie and the Banshees, and they’re going to maybe find Joy Division. And that opens up this whole world of music that I personally love. And, and I think it’s really cool to be a part of that.
McIntyre: I was looking at your IMDB page, and in this past year alone, is it 10 shows that have come out that you’ve worked on?
Malone: Something like that.
McIntyre: When each show is so specific to an era or a mood, how does your mind work that you’re organizing all these songs and artists and whatnot, but then keeping things separate because they’re obviously very different projects.
Malone: So much credit has to go to my team. I have the best team in the entire world and we support each other and help each other. I’m really good at compartmentalizing stuff. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing or what that says about me as a human being.
I think it also comes down to my relationship with music. It has completely changed from before I started this job. Whenever I hear a song, the first thing I think about is what show would this work in? What kind of scene would this work in? Every month I have to go through all my screenshots of Shazams or different songs that I find on Spotify.
I’m very inspired by all the showrunners and their visions and their stories. Sometimes when there’s a search for one show and I’m hitting my head against the wall and nothing I’m finding is sticking, I’m like, “Whitney, Nicole, Sarah, can you help me out? Here’s the scene. This is what we’re looking for.” And they will pull something I never even thought of.
McIntyre: I think your work on Wednesday will stand out as especially impressive in your career, but is there a specific song placement that you are especially proud of?
Malone: I’m so proud of every show that I’ve worked on because they’re all really incredible, special shows. I’m proud of where I came from. I’m very proud of the fact that this is my second career. I worked my way up and now have a company with four women being able to work on such incredible shows. I’m obviously proud of every show that I work on. There’s too many babies. Even every song is my baby!
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2022/12/15/netflixs-wednesday-music-supervisor-talks-viral-success-of-lady-gaga-and-the-cramps/