What was the direction from Ryan Murphy and the team when you were first landscaping the soundtrack?
I think the directive, really, was to make it so that it wasn’t just one genre. We were really going to try to make it as broad as possible. And I think we hit that with each song just being very different, whether having Sade and the Cranberries [in Episode 4], or all of the fun music in the pilot. Obviously [the music] had to be very period-specific; each episode took place in a different year. I went to my own personal playlist of songs that I love from the ’90s and then just took them into their respective year. New York, I think, is a character in itself. We say this a lot in TV: music is a character. But I think, in a period piece, music actually is a character, because that helps bring you into the story.
You say you delved into your own playlist. Were there any songs that you wanted to get in there that you couldn’t get clearance for?
We actually didn’t get any denials. We got every song we asked for. There were a couple of tracks that were eventually cut because the episode changed, but overall [all of the artists and labels] were really excited about the show.
The most difficult clearance, though, was Björk. She’s very, very, very protective about where her music is used. At first I thought, Let’s try Björk, and then realized what I’d got myself into because approval just wasn’t coming through… it was stuck in that frustrating place where it’s not a yes, but it’s not a no either. Usually at that stage the director or showrunner might write a letter to the artist, but this time I wrote it myself. When I lived in New York, Björk’s first two records, Debut and Post, were the soundtrack to the first time I ever fell in love. I wrote a very personal, vulnerable letter about what her music meant to me and how it fit the show’s tragic, beautiful love story. Within 48 hours we had approval—just two days before final mix. I didn’t even have a proper back-up track. I kept telling everyone: “It’s going to clear.” Thankfully, it did.
What other songs did you love squeezing in there?
I also worked very closely with Kate Bush’s team to clear “This Woman’s Work,” which I absolutely love. That’s a song I always wanted to place in the show. From day one it was at the top of the list—especially for the scene where John meets Carolyn for the first time. Beyond that, we used so many artists I love: Cocteau Twins, the Stone Roses, Mazzy Star, the Breeders, Portishead. Anyone who knows my taste would probably say: “Yep, that’s a Jen pick.” But it was very much a collaboration. Ryan Murphy knows music incredibly well and brought great ideas. Another directive was to avoid only choosing the obvious ’90s tracks. Some classics are there, of course, but we were able to sprinkle in songs that might not appear on everyone’s standard ’90s playlist.