The first of Miley’s two sold out Hollywood Bowl dates had some special guests in attendance: the cast of Nobody Wants This, including Kristen Bell, Jackie Tohn and Timothy Simons. “Miley loves the show,” says Simon Tikhman, co-founder and CEO of The Core Entertainment and executive producer of the season three companion album for the hit Netflix series. Likewise, “Netflix is so excited about Miley. I think [her] demo is similar to the Nobody Wants This demo in a lot of ways.”
On Friday, Oct. 23, the show’s season three soundtrack will arrive on Atlantic Records – one day after 10 new episodes hit Netflix. The romantic comedy, which debuted in 2024, follows the not-so-simple love story of an agnostic podcaster (Bell) and a “hot rabbi” (Adam Brody), as he’s dubbed in the show.
This season’s album features 16 previously unreleased singles from artists including Miley, Ellie Goulding, Ravyn Lenae, Metric, Bella Kay and a duet from Bailey Zimmerman and Stella Lefty. While the majority of the material came from songs the artists were already sitting on, country star Megan Moroney was so inspired by the show that she wrote its first original, “Say When.”
“When I first saw the scene, I knew I wanted to write it with Jessie Jo Dillon and Luke Laird,” Moroney shared in a statement of the rootsy, soulful track about waiting for the green light to cross a line. “It’s always fun to challenge myself to write about something fictional rather than my own life.”
Tikhman says landing an original song is “very challenging” and that his running joke while working on this album was that he thought artist management was hard, “but making a soundtrack with so many different artists and teams is very hard.” Thankfully, he’d done it before for season two — and this time, he had help from fellow soundtrack producers Jeff Levin, Atlantic’s president of A&R; Chief Zaruk, CEO and co-founder of The Core Entertainment; Ian Cripps, Atlantic’s EVP of A&R; and music supervisors Manish Raval, Tom Wolfe, and Jonathan Leahy of Aperture Music.
“Season one was just a crazy success that no one expected, including Netflix and the producers,” Tikhman says. “It became such a huge hit – and music was such a big component of it. And then when season two was rolling around, one of the music supervisors talked to [creator and writer] Erin [Foster] about doing a soundtrack, and they came to me. I was like, ‘This is a no-brainer.’” (Tikhman and Foster have been married since 2019, which the music exec says adds a bit of pressure to this project: “I especially want this to be great because my wife and I just like to do things to make each other happy and proud. This comes from real love.”)
The season two soundtrack featured Selena Gomez, Kacey Musgraves, Role Model, Ella Langley and others. And while Tikhman admits he learned a lot from that experience, the biggest lesson he applied to this season’s album was setting clear and early expectations for each artist.
“Artists don’t necessarily feel as invested in a soundtrack as they would if it was their own album, EP or single, which is obvious,” he says. “I think I was naive to assume that a lot of the artists will just push no matter what… I took that to heart in working with the team at Atlantic. We’ve really [encouraged] the artists to push their songs out pre-release, as they would their own song that’s not on a soundtrack. And it seems to be working well.”
Tikhman started working on this album about a year ago (and he’ll soon start working on the next album, sharing that season four episodes are being written right now). But, he also knew to leave some space for whoever would be having a moment at the time of the show’s release – for which he leaned on The Core’s head of A&R, Jamie Sudhalter. “A lot of it is, ‘Who are the most relevant, interesting artists that are zeitgeisty?’ I personally love Bella Kay and Alyssa Grace. It makes so much sense for them to be part of it.”
“There’s a lot of artists that I present to the [show] producers, and there’s definitely times where they’re like, ‘Never heard of them, but I like what they sound like.’ Erin has heard of Bailey Zimmerman because I manage him, but I’m sure that the producers never [had]. And I know six months ago, they’d never heard of Stella [Lefty].”
Every song on the album appears in the show — except Miley’s pop piano ballad “Cold Blooded,” which Tikhman says “fans are desperate for, so it was a win-win for all.” While he doesn’t remember which song came through first, he does know that “Cold Blooded” came in near the end — in the past couple of weeks, in fact. It’s nothing he and his team were stressed over, though, as across the season two and three albums Tikhman has instilled the same exact message.
“My whole thing is, I always tell everyone that the show could be silent – no score, no songs – and it would be a hit. So let’s just not ruin what they’ve built,” he says, adding that the show’s producers have final say. “At the end of the day, I trust them, because they have a hit Netflix show. There’s a reason why all these artists say ‘yes’ to doing this soundtrack. So let’s never forget that.”