listen to a Spotify playlist of the songs used in Aziz Ansari's great new Netflix series, 'Master of None'
by Bill Pearis
Aziz and date hanging at Baby’s All Right in Master of None
Aziz Ansari‘s new Netflix series, Master of None, debuted on Friday and if you were like me you powered through the whole thing over the course of a couple days. It’s very funny, sweet, often insightful and I recommend it wholeheartedly. Music plays a big part in the show — the third episode centers around a secret Father John Misty show at Baby’s All Right and the main love interest is a music publicist — which also becomes apparent through its very well done music supervision. Where the current trend for shows is to feature mostly new artists, Master of None is not shy about reaching back, aiming for on-point, often surprising choices throughout.
The music supervision (done by Zach Cowie with lots of input by Ansari) caught my attention almost from the start, when the opening credits to the first episode featured Jacques Dutronc‘s “Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille” — one of a few ’60s French pop songs used in the show (Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin‘s “Je Taime [Moi Non Plus]” and Claudine Longet‘s “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” are both used to great effect in later episodes). The second episode, “Parents,” probably the best of Season 1, opens with Pete Rock & CL Smooth‘s “They Reminisce Over You” and closes with “Son of My Father” by ’70s UK glitter band Chicory Tip, both of which are pretty perfect. There are lots of musical moments like that in the series, that also makes room for Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Sparks, William Onyeabor, Aphex Twin, The Durutti Column, cool soundtrack scores, new and classic hip hop, etc etc.
Ansari and Cowie also talked about their music choices with Pitchfork, and they’ve also put together a Spotify playlist which has pretty much every song used on Master of None‘s first season and you can stream that below.
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