How Love Story's Music Supervisor Crafted That Killer '90s Soundtrack

Warning: This post contains spoilers for all six episodes so far of FX's "Love Story."

John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's "Love Story" takes place in the '90s... and the show's soundtrack definitely reflects that.

For fans who grew up in that era, "Love Story" — airing Thursdays on FX and streaming on Hulu — serves as a blissful time capsule of '90s music, with big radio hits from Madonna, Goo Goo Dolls, and The Cranberries alongside alternative favorites from Jeff Buckley, Mazzy Star, and Portishead. The soundtrack transports us back to those pre-Y2K days and helps bring John and Carolyn's romance to vivid life. (You don't have to run out and make a mixtape, either: The official "Love Story" playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.)

With "Love Story" quickly becoming one of our favorite soundtracks on TV, we reached out to music supervisor Jen Malone, who's earned Emmy nominations for her work on "Euphoria" and "Atlanta" and now curates the "Love Story" soundtrack. Here, she tells TVLine how she went about capturing that iconic '90s sound, reveals which personal favorites she snuck onto the playlist, and does a deep dive into this week's wedding episode, from John and Carolyn wildly jumping around the room to Pulp to their romantic wedding dance to Radiohead.

TVLINE | "Love Story" is firmly set in the '90s. But '90s music was kind of all over the place, genre-wise. Was there a specific vibe that you were going for this season? We don't hear a lot of grunge in there, for example.
I think the directive from the top was to make the show as universal as possible, by not sticking to a certain genre. There were some genres that... like grunge, for example, I don't think it really fit into the love story aspect of the show. Because at the end of the day, my job is to serve the story and the vision of the showrunners. But I do feel it was super fun working on this show, because we did get to work with a lot of different genres, and a lot of people have been gravitating to those different songs in the show. But yeah, we wanted to make it not just a one-note type of tone, no pun intended, and to give everybody a different song or genre to really connect with and to help tell the story.

TVLINE | Are there any personal favorite artists or songs from that era that you knew you wanted to work in?
I was really lucky that I was able to work in a lot of the songs that were my favorites. There are a lot: Cocteau Twins, the Peter Gabriel song ["Blood of Eden"], I absolutely loved. The Stone Roses, I have been dying to get in a show, as well as Primal Scream. I mean, there's just so many. It was great to get a really deep cut from Portishead in there. I mean, that song ["Roads"] has been on my "I need a good cry" playlist forever, and it was just one of those perfect scenes that was like, "Yep, this is great." So yeah, there were a lot of songs that I've always wanted to put in shows. And working on this period-authentic piece, I grew up in the '90s, so some of these are core memories.

TVLINE | There are also a few songs from different time periods in there, like the Velvet Underground song this week, "Venus in Furs." How do you decide when to mix in something from an earlier era?
It's really what the scene calls for, and just what works, but also keeping the show very well-rounded. We do have an Ella Fitzgerald and a Nina Simone. So I think that the Velvet Underground, obviously, they are New York, you know. You hear Velvet Underground, you hear New York, and Nico, you have the fashion aspect of it. So it's just such a cool song and something that's not licensed. You don't hear that song in a lot of shows. So it was just a really cool moment of, like: This is not '90s, but it still gives it this really well-rounded sound, and it just worked there. That's probably one of my favorites, too.

TVLINE | In this week's episode, we see John and Carolyn smoking weed and dancing around to Pulp's "Common People," which is an alternative Britpop hit of the time. Did you see that as sort of a meta comment on them trying to have a quote-unquote normal wedding, and not a Kennedy wedding?
I think so. It's also just such an intimate moment and a joyous moment with them: being excited for their wedding, and having John suggest this random, obscure place in Georgia. It was just such a beautiful scene, and we see them having fun and letting loose. I think that with the mystery around them, especially with Carolyn, because she is a very mysterious, elusive person, it just... those walls came down for us. We got to see her personality shine through, and both of them together as a couple smoking weed and singing and dancing in the bedroom on the bed, it was just a great, intimate moment. It's a fun scene. You can't listen to "Common People" and not sing along and start dancing.

TVLINE | Just as a side note: Did they play that song on set? Do they know what song is going to be in there?
Yeah, for that one, actually, the writer scripted it in. So as soon as I get the script and I see that this is something that they're going to be singing along and dancing to, I had to clear that before we even shot. And [Pulp frontman] Jarvis Cocker is very precious about that song. So it was a tough clear. But I knew how important it was to the scene, how perfect it was. So as a music supervisor, I kind of have to figure out different ways to get that yes. A producer I had on another project who had a relationship with him totally helped me out, and I'm so grateful to him and to Jarvis for seeing what a cool moment this is. It was a little dicey, but we got it, and yes, they played it on set. And I think everybody had a really good time with that scene. You can tell by watching it.

TVLINE | As for the wedding, did you have any intel about what music was actually played at their wedding? Do you know that "Amazing Grace" was sung there?
It was. I watched "The Lost Tapes," the documentary, which does have footage from the wedding. And they interviewed the man that sang at the wedding. We did the math, and how old was he at that time, and they cast somebody who had that same voice and look as the actual singer.

TVLINE | Do you know what was played at their reception, too?
I do. There was a Prince song that was played. But we wanted a slower song. and really a song that was scoring the scene. What we do a lot in this show is we use songs as score to complement Bryce [Dessner]'s absolutely heart-wrenching theme. And the Radiohead [song "(Nice Dream)"], when you look at that song, it is such a sad song. It's just about how happiness is kind of temporary and in your head and fragile and unsustainable. So that wouldn't necessarily be the first choice for a wedding song. But because we used it more as a score piece, scoring the moment and then having kind of this lyrical commentary on it, that's why we wanted to go with that one. They're rising up and kind of being in their own world, where the world kind of melts away... it's like they're the only two people in the room, which is exactly what I think we were trying to do. And I think we did that with the Radiohead.

Let us know your favorite "Love Story" needle drop so far in a comment below.