xx
The XX
Low and ambient in the condo — a slow, heavy bass under Kaylee’s heartbeat.
Watch on YouTube ↗Soundtrack companion
Music of Branding Her
The songs that play across Branding Her — in series order, grouped by the scene they belong to. Click any cover to play.
Book 1: Beginnings & Holidays
Book 1 · Episode 2 — Holidays
Hello
Adele
The radio lands on it somewhere past Connecticut and Alex’s hand goes to the volume. Up, not down.
Watch on YouTube ↗All I Want for Christmas Is You
Mariah Carey
In the background of a restaurant quiet enough to hear it.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 1: Beginnings & Holidays
Book 1 · Bonus — Ten Years Earlier
Spinning Around
Kylie Minogue
The Kylie number, strutted and lip-synced in six-inch heels.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 2: Mutual Fun & Business Trip
Book 2 · Episode 3 — Mutual Fun
Hello
Adele
The road trip comes back all at once — Alex screaming it with the windows down, the filthy lyric twist. (Also plays in Book 1 · Episode 2 — Holidays.)
Watch on YouTube ↗I Touch Myself
Divinyls
The video that starts playing. Three seconds in, her face is on fire.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 2: Mutual Fun & Business Trip
Book 2 · Bonus — Tonight Is for You
Roads
Portishead
Low and electronic from a speaker on the dresser — a bass line and a woman’s voice. (Also plays in Book 2 · Episode 4 — Business Trip, the morning after.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 2: Mutual Fun & Business Trip
Book 2 · Episode 4 — Business Trip
Valentine’s Day — the candles, the two medallions, and three words she held back.
Roads
Portishead
The episode opens the morning after, with Valentine’s still in her: the candles, her own sun on Alex’s shelf, and the thing she didn’t say. (Also plays in Book 2 · Bonus — Tonight Is for You, the same night at full length.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 3: Exploring & Jealousy
Book 3 · Bonus — Gay Pride
Can’t Get You Out of My Head
Kylie Minogue
A queen in six-inch platforms commands the sidewalk corner with a Kylie number.
Watch on YouTube ↗Hold Tight
Jamie xx
Alex drops the needle on something already cued — low and liquid, like sound wobbling underwater.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 3: Exploring & Jealousy
Book 3 · Episode 6 — Jealousy
The Machine
With Every Heartbeat
Robyn
The bass hits Kaylee’s ribcage before they reach the door.
Watch on YouTube ↗I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’
Scissor Sisters
Kaylee’s first night in a dark, noisy place, working out why people come.
Watch on YouTube ↗I Love It (feat. Charli XCX)
Icona Pop
Warm and physical, straight through her. The music doesn’t leave room for anything else.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 4: Kaylee & Alex
Book 4 · Opening — Before
Book 4 opens here, ahead of Kaylee.
Dive
Tycho
Low and spare, more texture than melody — filling the spaces the silence was guarding.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 4: Kaylee & Alex
Book 4 · Episode 8 — Alex
Two nights in one episode — the one Alex describes, and the one they have.
1: Alex’s breakdown night of random songs and alcohol
Mezzanine
Massive Attack
The vinyl run begins. She played almost every record she owned that night.
Watch on YouTube ↗xx
The XX
Another sleeve off the pile, another side on. All over the place, by her own account. (Also plays in Book 1 · Episode 2 — Holidays.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Stranger in a Room
Jamie xx
Somewhere in the middle of the run, with the room already a mess of sleeves.
Watch on YouTube ↗Bitter Sweet Symphony
The Verve
Strings up loud somewhere in the run, and nothing about that night in any order.
Watch on YouTube ↗On the Nature of Daylight
Max Richter
Early on, before Florence, when it was still quiet enough to sit in.
Watch on YouTube ↗Shake It Out
Florence + The Machine
Garbage, Portishead, Florence. Florence came next.
Watch on YouTube ↗I Think I’m Paranoid
Garbage
First name on the list. Nothing went back in its cover after this.
Watch on YouTube ↗Reformation II
Lab 4
The other side of it. The music hit before she could think about leaving.
Watch on YouTube ↗Total Eclipse of the Heart
Bonnie Tyler
“Bonnie Tyler,” she says, flat, into Kaylee’s silence — and then the laughing starts. (Also plays in the cabin, below.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Nothing Compares 2 U
Sinéad O’Connor
She went to skip it and didn’t. Then she looked it up and watched three different versions. (Also plays in the cabin, below.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Your Loving Arms
Billie Ray Martin
Not her usual stuff — whatever the soppy search decided fit.
Watch on YouTube ↗2. Kaylee and Alex in the cabin after their stories.
Nothing Compares 2 U
Sinéad O’Connor
A sustained wash of sound, hollow and aching. This was the song. (Also in the long night above, told out loud.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Total Eclipse of the Heart
Bonnie Tyler
Dancing in the cabin — the kind of dancing that means something. (Also in the long night above.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Heaven Is a Place on Earth
Belinda Carlisle
On the cabin playlist. A promise neither of them says out loud.
Watch on YouTube ↗The Power of Love
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
All the eighties epics, and this one takes its time getting there.
Watch on YouTube ↗Shake It Out
Florence + The Machine
Florence came next, and Alex rolled her shoulders to it, loose and easy. (Also in the long night above.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Your Loving Arms
Billie Ray Martin
The playlist she made on the Wednesday, finally playing where it was meant to. (Also in the long night above.)
Watch on YouTube ↗There’s Nothing I Won’t Do
JX
Some nineties dance after that, wine-blurred, the tempo already starting to drop.
Watch on YouTube ↗I Luv U Baby
The Original
Some nineties dance, both of them too far gone on wine to do anything but move.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 5: Vacation & Outing
Book 5 · Episode 9 — Vacation
Fly Me to the Moon
Frank Sinatra
A man in a tuxedo plays it in the piano bar, on the same bench she was pinned to the first day.
Watch on YouTube ↗At Last
Etta James
Formal night — gold light under the chandeliers, a live band working the standards.
Watch on YouTube ↗Trot the Fox
Michael Lloyd & Le Disc — from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack
The foxtrot Robert leads her through, under the same chandeliers. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t need to. He dances with her the way he dances with his wife.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 5: Vacation & Outing
Book 5 · Episode 10 — Outing
Fly Me to the Moon
Frank Sinatra
Someone practicing it up toward the bandshell, the morning every small thing has a brightness to it. (Also plays in Book 5 · Episode 9 — Vacation.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 6: Denial, London, Yes or No?
Book 6 · Episode 11 — Denial
Just Can’t Get Enough (White Label 1998 Remix)
Transformer 2
The white label out of Box B. “Great tune. Should really have your name on it.”
Watch on YouTube ↗Dukeball
Duke vs Nalin & Kane
The needle drops. Beats. A piano stab. Another. A swoosh.
Watch on YouTube ↗For an Angel vs Lover (white label)
Paul van Dyk vs Rachel McFarlane
Not a song, Alex says. A place.
Watch on YouTube ↗Luvstruck
Southside Spinners
More out of the box. A riff that arrives and refuses to leave.
Watch on YouTube ↗Beautiful (1999 Mix)
Matt Darey
The white-label years, still turning. A voice comes up over the top of it and stays.
Watch on YouTube ↗Passion (Original Edit)
Amen UK
Piano and push. Put yourself somewhere that feels good, free — try the waterfall.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 6: Denial, London, Yes or No?
Book 6 · Episode 12 — London
The anniversary night, and the colored one plays the whole way through the dressing — one room of it never like the next.
Gosh
Jamie xx
Murky synths and broken beats — the album Kaylee had come to know as the colored one.
Watch on YouTube ↗Stranger in a Room
Jamie xx
Oliver Sim, alone in a crowded room, on the album this time. (Also plays in Book 4 · Episode 8 — Alex.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Hold Tight
Jamie xx
The one she first heard wobbling underwater off Alex’s turntable. (Also plays in Book 3 · Bonus — Gay Pride.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Loud Places
Jamie xx
The swell, and the whole thing opens out. She knew by now where it was going.
Watch on YouTube ↗The Rest Is Noise
Jamie xx
The one she couldn’t have named the first time she heard it. She can now.
Watch on YouTube ↗Girl
Jamie xx
Late in the album, and thirty-six hours of London already showing in the mirror.
Watch on YouTube ↗Book 6: Denial, London, Yes or No?
Book 6 · Episode 13 — Yes or No?
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Frank Sinatra
Sinatra on the radio, late, the same station as the night before.
Watch on YouTube ↗Last Christmas
Wham!
The office party — never named on the page; this is what it sounds like.
Watch on YouTube ↗Bonus story, coming soon
Bonus story · The Adele Concert
Hello
Adele
The piano starts, and there it is. Live this time. (Also plays in Book 1 · Episode 2 — Holidays.)
Watch on YouTube ↗Hometown Glory
Adele
It goes by without her tracking it. She watched instead of listened.
Watch on YouTube ↗Rolling in the Deep
Adele
The last song, and the whole arena up. Throat raw, perfectly happy.
Watch on YouTube ↗Not songs
On screen
The films, the series and the stage show the books put on a screen — in the order their scenes come.
Wild Things — the pool scene
Film scene · Book 1 · Episode 1 — Beginnings
The Friday-night montage: wine, the nineties thriller she’d been meaning to revisit, and the scene that sent her back to it.
Watch on YouTube ↗Carol
Official trailer · Book 1 · Episode 2 — Holidays
After dinner they go to see it. A woman falling for a woman, watched by a woman falling for a woman — and Kaylee feels the shape of it settle on her in the dark.
Watch on YouTube ↗The Duke of Burgundy — chocolate wrappers
Film scene · Book 5 · Bonus — Switch
On screen the dom sinks to her knees. The music does something tender and slightly strange. The film Alex rents is never named in the story — the identification is the author’s own.
Watch on YouTube ↗Fifty Shades of Grey
Official trailer · Book 5 · Bonus — Switch
“It’s like a weird art-house lesbian Fifty Shades.” Kaylee’s verdict on what Alex has put on. Alex, not looking away from the screen: “It’s much more than that.”
Watch on YouTube ↗Stranger Things
Official trailer · Book 6 · Episode 11 — Denial
Running low on the TV, Alex on the couch with her knees drawn up — the show that happens to be on when the question finally gets asked.
Watch on YouTube ↗Elf the Musical
Stage show · official trailer · Book 6 · Episode 13 — Yes or No?
The matinee after lunch. Ryan laughs in all the wrong places, loud through the soft bits, and both of them watch him sideways instead of the show.
Watch on YouTube ↗