Aziz Ansari on the Music of "Master of None": Father John Misty, Aphex Twin, Arthur Russell, and More

The first and only time we hear the titular Beach House song in the first season of Aziz Ansari‘s new Netflix series, Master of None, is when Ansari’s character, Dev, has been rejected by a woman at the end of a long and seemingly romantic night. The show, which follows Dev, an aspiring actor who lives a New York life split between success and aimlessness, might have easily taken too much inspiration from the melancholy track, which includes the lines “Cry all the time, cause I’m not having fun.” But Ansari’s energy is indefatigable, and the show is accordingly humorous. It’s not quite RAAAAAAAANDY!, but it isn’t as dry and dark as a “Louie”.

“Master of None”‘s music selections are prolific and distinctive, featuring tracks by Aphex Twin, the Animals, the Slits, Arthur Russell, Lou Reed, New Edition, Spandau Ballet, and more. (You can find a soundtrack playlist here.) There’s one episode that’s entirely set to country music, as Dev and a love interest take a weekend trip to Nashville. There’s another where he invites a date to a Father John Misty show, where Josh Tillman runs through “Chateau Lobby #4″.

To discuss the show’s music, Pitchfork hopped on the phone with Ansari and music supervisor Zach Cowie.

Pitchfork: Were the music selections made entirely by you two? 

Zach Cowie: We’re both record collectors that are kind of always looking for crate-digging kind of deeper stuff. That sort of becomes a sound that unifies the whole series. A lot of it is just mixed up sort of records, and it does fit well with the character.

Pitchfork: You use a lot of music to score the tone of a scene—Aphex Twin’s “Come to Daddy” is used for that nightmarish fantasy where you’re imagining yourself as the parent of these bratty kids. 

Aziz Ansari: That was Zach’s idea.

ZC: It made us both laugh. We’re both very big Aphex Twin fans. And he shows up a couple times in the series. Growing up as a kid watching “120 Minutes”, that video will always be the total personification of an absolute nightmare to me. It just popped into my head.

Pitchfork: Then, there’s Toto’s “Africa” during a bar montage.

ZC: You’re going to have to talk to Aziz about that one.

AA: That song is just so triumphant and fun. I listened to it yesterday, actually. The Toto people were like, “Do they genuinely like this song or are they making fun of Toto?” We were like, “No, we love this song! Please, Toto. Why do you have such low self esteem?”

Pitchfork: Some of the picks are a little more on-the-nose—”Cheating” by the Animals scores an episode about cheating. 

AA: Zach and I were both sensitive to using stuff that’s on-the-nose, but I think the vibe of the song ultimately trumps everything. There’s an episode when we use that Arthur Russell song “A Little Lost”—obviously that’s kind of on-the-nose but I think it’s also, for both of us, one of our favorite songs ever. When we started the show we were like, ‘Oh, we gotta use that song somewhere,’ and that was even before we decided on having a different theme song every episode. Did you see the first episode without any music or anything, Zach, is that what you saw when we talked the first time?

ZC: No, I started with the scripts.

AA: But we talked a lot about Arthur Russell. We almost named the show “A Little Lost” but then we decided not to.

ZC: He’s huge for both of us. Arthur Russell’s music, and Serge Gainsbourg’s music, were really strong through-lines for everybody that worked on this show in terms of getting some unity in the vibe.

Pitchfork: What draws you to both of their music?

ZC: [Russell] made so much stuff that there’s a perfect thing from him for just about every moment. Actually, Serge Gainsbourg is kind of the same. Both those guys, their music is always distinctly theirs, no matter what kind of style or sound they’re morphing into.

AA: The challenge was: How do you craft a sound for a show that’s not been done before? The go-to is jazz—I think that’s what Woody Allen uses and “Louie” has jazz stuff. It’s tough—jazz works really well, it’s quiet, it doesn’t get in the way of the scenes, but what can you do that’s different if you want to push yourself to do something different? 

Eric Wareheim, Aziz Ansari, and Noël Wells in “Master of None. Photo courtesy of K.C. Bailey/Netflix

Pitchfork: One episode, about the different acting roles for men and women, is explicitly feminist. You’ve got music from X-Ray Spex and the Slits in there; you’ve also got a scene where a woman walks home with the Halloween theme playing as she’s pursued, while we see the guys walking home to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

AA: To me, that’s the best horror movie score I could think of. Then, I was trying to think of the dumbest songs I could play. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” is pretty stupid.

That scene—it’s really crazy how much it’s made by the music. That was a tough scene because it’s a dark scene that’s happening. To be able to get the humor out of it, the music really is what kind of helps sell that scene in a lot of ways. Even the little thing like when that one guy grabs the door and you hear that [high pitched noise] –that little thing is from Halloween too. All those little flourishes help that scene work. It’s a woman getting followed by this creepy guy, so the music actually really helps.

ZC: It was really tough for us to choose the Slits and X-Ray Spex, because we had a really long list of their contemporaries that we loved. That was kind of the funny thing, between the two of us we had too many ideas. That’s something that became a big challenge with this show, to find the perfect one out of a very long list, because we both are just massive music freaks. 

Pitchfork: The Nashville episode is entirely scored by country. You’ve even got a band, Fletcher & the Fixins, that plays as you talk about the meaning of honky-tonk. Did you find them, or did you make them up?

AA: Fletcher & the Fixins is a fake band that my brother came up with the name, which I do love. The definition of honky-tonk—we were rehearsing, and someone was like, “Well, honky’s like a somewhat racist term.” We looked up tonk and means hitting something hard and our script writer Leslie actually said it: “So honky tonk means white people hitting it hard?” We all just started laughing, and were like, Oh man, we’ve gotta put that in the dialogue.

I don’t know a ton of country stuff, and Zach knows every genre, but yeah, that was really fun. It gave the whole episode such a different feel from the rest of the series, and I love a lot of those songs a lot. 

Pitchfork: That one also has Loretta Lynn’s “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly”, which follows a fight between Dev and his girlfriend in the airport.

ZC: I’ve just always thought that song was hilarious. There’s a funny thing in country music where’s there’s a lot of beef songs, and that one has just always been in my head. When I saw the scene, I sent it to Aziz; we both laughed and it made it in.

AA: That was another scene where the music really helped elevate it to another level. It’s a quiet thing for people to sit there angry at each other, but you put that song underneath it and it really makes a big difference. 

ZC: Country music is awesome for a music supervisor, because each song is such a great little story. It’s a really good sound to help support scenes. I do kind of collect everything but I’m a bit of a country dork, so I’ve been working for that call for awhile.

AA: I’m so glad we set that episode in Nashville because you know, if it was Chicago or something, I don’t know if we would be able to use all this awesome country music to give it the feel.

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