How The Boys Chooses Its Billy Joel Songs (and Entire Season 2 Soundtrack)

The Boys has one in every of the correct soundtracks on TV—and a total lot of Billy Joel.
Every needle fall is meticulously plotted and chosen for the particular moment within the series.
“I build an wonderful amount of like and consideration into selecting the ideal songs for The Boys,” says showrunner Eric Kripke

We’re now now not even done with Season 2 of The Boys but, but the characters are already so effectively defined that it be easy to model their personalities in precisely a word or two. Homelander (Antony Starr), as an instance, is nasty. Billy Butcher (Karl Metropolis), no doubt, is brash. The Deep (Chace Crawford) is lost, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is down-to-earth and kind, and Mom’s Milk (Laz Alonso) is effectively-adjusted (all things even handed, that’s). With Hughie (Jack Quaid), effectively, his ingredient is special. Because his ingredient is that he loves Billy Joel. And when we’re pronouncing he loves Billy Joel, we mean he loooooves Billy Joel. Listens to him usually. Talks about him usually. References him usually. It is some distance a ingredient.

And even as it’s good to maybe be a TV existing, and your de facto principal character loves Billy Joel, effectively, that plot you earn to play a form of Billy Joel. And that’s the reason precisely what The Boys does. There is a ton to esteem about The Boys, from the compelling memoir to the unlit humor to the immense performances, but one in every of the largest components to all of that sticking collectively is the aloof’s A+ soundtrack, which is willing to delivery with Billy Joel and transition to punk rock or hip-hop—whatever suits, if reality be told—with a moment’s peek.

Whilst it’s good to maybe be questioning the get, precisely, all of the Billy Joel like comes from, the answer is directly from Jack Quaid’s solutions. On his first day, filming his first scene of The Boys, Quaid improvised a line about how Hughie’s favorite musicians personal been James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel, and one William Martin Joel.

“The Billy Joel ingredient was once a happy accident,” he says. “One thing about Billy Joel correct stuck. It made so primary sense for Hughie. He’s a tiny bit one from Fresh York and, to me, Billy Joel correct IS Fresh York.”

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The fact that Hughie is roofed in blood veritably once an episode also plays a role. Quaid thinks that is a the clarification why he would now not handiest like Billy Joel, but also roughly wants him.

“BJ’s track is correct so comforting, and Hughie is a man who’s repeatedly going thru tense experience after tense experience,” he says. “The dude wants some consolation! I personal a playlist for every and each character I play, so it was once this kind of reward to personal Hughie’s favorite musician change into this kind of obvious phase of the aloof.”

Billy Joel is now now not the handiest one; whether or now now not its rock, folks, or hip-hop (in any amount of languages), each and each song in The Boys is chosen incredibly carefully.

“The Billy Joel ingredient was once a happy accident,” Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie, says. “One thing about Billy Joel correct stuck.”

“I build an wonderful amount of like and consideration into selecting the ideal songs for The Boys. The editors, track supervisors and I will are trying dozens and dozens of tracks within the modifying room unless we land on the ideal one,” showrunner Eric Kripke says. “We tend to lean in opposition to punk rock because it appears to be like to suit the anarchic spirit of The Boys, or hundreds traditional rock correct because I if reality be told, if reality be told like traditional rock.”

And he’s lived as much as those likes to this level in Season 2, obviously with more than one Billy Joel songs, but also opening the season with a Rolling Stones traditional and shutting episode 2 out with the correct “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads. It is all done in service of the aloof and what suits excellent—which is why we are able to also additionally obtain a moment the get The Deep is getting entrenched in a cult, tripping on a psychedelic, being attentive to the Goo Goo Dolls.

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Kripke is repeatedly shopping for songs which could work within the aloof. And that can mean surprising ‘aha!’ moments. “Usually, esteem Iggy Pop in The Boys pilot, I stumbled on the song on my automobile radio as I was once utilizing in,” he says. “But each and each and at any time when, it takes a form of trial and mistake.”

Quaid is correct as into track as his Joel-obsessed character is; he says he makes a playlist for every and each character he plays (he’s beforehand appeared in HBO’s Vinyl and the romantic comedy Plus One, among others) and has shared his personal decisions in an mountainous playlist for Hughie with Amazon over on Spotify.

So while you slay up staring at superheroes-behaving-badly in The Boys and tapping your toes to the Goo Goo Dolls, or air-strumming a Talking Heads bassline, or singing along to “We Did now not Megastar The Hearth” esteem Hughie and Starlight know that it’s good to feel correct about it. That was once all of the level.

Under, it’s good to study out all of the songs on The Boys Season 2 soundtrack to this level. This memoir will seemingly be updated after every episode.