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

The Boys has one of the best soundtracks on TV—and a whole lot of Billy Joel.
Each needle drop is meticulously plotted and chosen for the specific moment in the series.
“I put an incredible amount of love and attention into picking the right songs for The Boys,” says showrunner Eric Kripke

We’re not even done with Season 2 of The Boys yet, but the characters are already so well defined that it’s easy to explain their personalities in just a word or two. Homelander (Antony Starr), for example, is evil. Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), certainly, is brash. The Deep (Chace Crawford) is lost, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is down-to-earth and kind, and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) is well-adjusted (all things considered, that is). With Hughie (Jack Quaid), well, his thing is special. Because his thing is that he loves Billy Joel. And when we say he loves Billy Joel, we mean he loooooves Billy Joel. Listens to him all the time. Talks about him all the time. References him all the time. It’s a thing.

And when you’re a TV show, and your de facto main character loves Billy Joel, well, that means you get to play a lot of Billy Joel. And that’s exactly what The Boys does. There’s a ton to like about The Boys, from the compelling story to the dark humor to the great performances, but one of the most important factors to all of that sticking together is the show’s A+ soundtrack, which can start with Billy Joel and transition to punk rock or hip-hop—whatever fits, really—with a moment’s notice.

If you’re wondering where, exactly, all the Billy Joel love comes from, the answer is directly from Jack Quaid’s mind. On his first day, filming his first scene of The Boys, Quaid improvised a line about how Hughie’s favorite musicians were James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel, and one William Martin Joel.

“The Billy Joel thing was a happy accident,” he says. “Something about Billy Joel just stuck. It made so much sense for Hughie. He’s a kid from New York and, to me, Billy Joel just IS New York.”

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The fact that Hughie is covered in blood basically once an episode also plays a role. Quaid thinks this is a reason why he doesn’t only love Billy Joel, but also kind of needs him.

“BJ’s music is just so comforting, and Hughie is a guy who’s constantly going through traumatic experience after traumatic experience,” he says. “The dude needs some comfort! I create a playlist for every character I play, so it was such a gift to have Hughie’s favorite musician become such a special part of the show.”

Billy Joel isn’t the only one; whether its rock, folk, or hip-hop (in any number of languages), each song in The Boys is chosen incredibly carefully.

“The Billy Joel thing was a happy accident,” Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie, says. “Something about Billy Joel just stuck.”

“I put an incredible amount of love and attention into picking the right songs for The Boys. The editors, music supervisors and I will try dozens and dozens of tracks in the editing room until we land on the right one,” showrunner Eric Kripke says. “We tend to lean towards punk rock because it seems to fit the anarchic spirit of The Boys, or lots of classic rock just because I really, really love classic rock.”

And he’s lived up to those loves so far in Season 2, obviously with multiple Billy Joel songs, but also opening the season with a Rolling Stones classic and closing episode 2 out with the fitting “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads. It’s all done in service of the show and what fits best—which is why we can also find a moment where The Deep is getting entrenched in a cult, tripping on a psychedelic, listening to the Goo Goo Dolls.

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Kripke is constantly looking for songs that might work in the show. And that can mean sudden ‘aha!’ moments. “Sometimes, like Iggy Pop in The Boys pilot, I found the song on my car radio as I was driving in,” he says. “But each and every time, it takes a lot of trial and error.”

Quaid is just as into music as his Joel-obsessed character is; he says he makes a playlist for every character he plays (he’s previously appeared in HBO’s Vinyl and the romantic comedy Plus One, among others) and has shared his own selections in an expansive playlist for Hughie with Amazon over on Spotify.

So when you find yourself watching 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 Didn’t Star The Fire” like Hughie and Starlight know that you can feel good about it. That was the whole point.

Below, you can check out all the songs on The Boys Season 2 soundtrack so far. This story will be updated after every episode.