'Lucky' Was a Non-Negotiable for the Overcompensating Music Supervisors
Jen Malone and Nicole Weisberg on Benny Skinner's music-packed Prime Video comedy, and getting a turbo boost from Brat summer.
Welcome to the wild and wonderful era of Emmy Awards: Phase 1, a time before nomination voting when the arbitrary rules governing what is timely are set aside, and we can discuss projects that were released weeks or months earlier and deserve to be top of mind again. Overcompensating premiered on Prime Video May 15, 2025.
To the surprise of absolutely zero people who have seen the show, the inclusion of Britney Spears’ “Lucky” was a non-negotiable for Benito Skinner’s Prime Video comedy Overcompensating. Because what possible other pop song could both summon an entire era and slyly comment on Benny’s conflict as an outwardly straight jock who nevertheless cries cries cries in his lonely, closeted heart? Skinner knew exactly what the assignment was (“Lucky” was also an integral part of his original solo show that inspired the series), and his musical taste runs throughout the hit comedy. After all, he brought on Charli XCX as both an executive music producer and a special guest star playing herself.
In fact, so integral was music to the storylines that music supervisors Jen Malone and Nicole Weisberg joined the project during prep. “We had to make sure that [the songs] were all cleared and ready to go,” Malone says. “Also, there was a lot of on-camera singing, like ‘Super Bass,’ and we had to make sure that all of that was set before we started shooting.”
Luckily, the one-two power combo of Charli XCX and Skinner made securing the necessary songs fairly smooth. The whole enterprise might also have been streamlined thanks to some outrageously lucky timing, too.
“We met with her and the team the week that the Robyn remix [‘360’] came out,” Weisberg says. “This was before the Brat album came out by a couple weeks. So it was just so surreal, I think for every person involved, including her, to see what happened with Brat. I think it would've gone just as well because Charli's such a staple icon in music, but having the Brat engine behind these requests… I think everybody in the whole music business would've done something with Charli if they could during that span of time. So that worked out for us.”
Skinner may have had his wishlist and non-negotiables, but that still left Malone and Weisberg plenty of room to get creative within the parameters of the series’ (never specified) setting in the 2010s.
“We were trying to fill in the blanks on a palate that was really well informed,” Weisberg says. “Benny and Charli gave us a lot of wishlist items, and I think we felt like our job was to give them what they were wanting. If Benny was asking for a pitch at a certain spot, we were making sure to include things that I knew would be important to the palate instead of just miscellaneous indie [songs].”
“We just continued to maintain that [time period],” Malone adds. “Like, who did we have in the bar scene? Surfer Blood, who were indie darlings at that time. And Benny was like, ‘Fuck yes,’ when we pitched it. So it was definitely a lot of supporting their overall vision and the overall sound of the show. It's not an easy job. Especially a show where music helps define the show and these characters, [and] there was just a lot of music, so it was a very heavy lift, but it just worked perfectly.”
Overcompensating is one of the rare shows where the music choices feel both surprising and inevitable, especially the dramatic close to Episode 5, in which estranged besties Carmen and Benny reunite post-heartbreak to the tune of Charli XCX’s “Claws.”
“ I know Jen loves it too,” Weisberg says. “It's just the emotional part of that with him and Carmen and the way that we use so much of the song. The sequence was cut to its ups and downs, and I just love that.”
“As a company, we work a lot on really heavy shows, and just a couple months prior, we're like, ‘We wanna do more comedies. How do we get more comedies?’ Just putting it out there. And then this one came to us through A24, and it was just, ‘This is what the world needs right now. We need nostalgia! We need those moments. And we need to be able to laugh and not be like, ‘Oh God, the world is ending.’”
Jen Malone and Nicole Weisberg’s music supervisor credits include everything from The Equalizer to Wednesday and Carol & the End of the World, while Malone may be best known for her work on Euphoria. They earned a Guild of Music Supervisors Award for their work on Zola. Overcompensating is now streaming on Prime Video and, shockingly, has not yet been renewed for a second season.
The music in Overcompensating was definitely a highlight. I was so shocked they managed to get Charli and funny to read the met with her before Brat blew up. It was the perfect timing.