Note: This article contains light spoilers.
The final three minutes of “The Dinner Party,” the fifth episode of “Master of None” season two, could be a music video. Aziz Ansari’s charming protagonist Dev has just dropped off his friend Francesca (Alessandra Mastronardi) and spends the ride home replaying their bittersweet night in his mind, cursing himself for falling for someone who’s ten years into a relationship. Aside from his mumbled “thanks” to the Uber driver, there’s no dialogue once Soft Cell’s “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” starts playing.
The song isn’t an obvious choice to soundtrack an emotional scene on a cool show about a 30-something bachelor frustratingly dating his way through contemporary New York. It has a vivid narrative of its own—a betrayed lover’s parting message to a girlfriend he’s realized will never truly be his—that doesn’t match up with Dev’s situation, and it carries a distinct whiff of ’80s synth-pop cheese. But in the context of this lonely drive, “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” becomes a requiem for a relationship, fully realized in Dev’s mind, that seems to have ended before it could even begin.
This is the genius of the music supervision on “Master of None,” a show that understands better than any other how young adults who love music actually consume it. Thirty-four-year-old Ansari, who handpicks the soundtrack alongside music supervisor Zach Cowie, represents someone who remembers when MTV and handmade mixtapes were still relevant sources of new music, but who also could expand their horizons by binging on Napster downloads as early as high school. Raised in an era when once-hardened divisions between rock, pop, rap, and country fans were quickly dissolving, Ansari reflects not only a broad range of genres, eras, and cultures in his selections, but also a remarkable lack of snobbery. “Master of None” doesn’t wrap “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”—or any sync—in a layer of self-protective irony. It celebrates the serendipity of encountering the perfect song to fit a moment, an effect that feels even more magical when the track in question isn’t an obvious pick.
Those less sentimental (or of a vastly different age group) than Ansari might dismiss some of the show’s most memorable syncs as disposable ’80s and ’90s pop hits. Season one’s cathartic, drunken sing-along to Toto’s “Africa” or the Vengaboys track that becomes a running joke in season two’s “New York, I Love You” certainly aren’t highbrow references. But, in an interview with Pitchfork about season one’s music, Ansari correctly described “Africa” as “so triumphant and fun.” “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?’” he recalled.
By writing them into storylines, Ansari uses these songs to bond characters through shared cultural memories. On “Master of None,” people don’t just listen to music—they talk about it, the way we all do when we’re out at a restaurant with friends and a song we haven’t thought about in ages suddenly starts playing. In season two’s “First Date,” Dev meets a fan who turns out to be the late dance-pop novelty Scatman John’s son while out at a bar with a friend he hopes will become a girlfriend. It’s her enthusiastic chair-dancing when he plays Scatman’s ridiculous hit, “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop),” during their cab ride home that gives him the courage kiss her. Alas, he finds out that she was just excited to hear a familiar song from her childhood, not to make out.
Memory works in other ways on the show’s soundtrack, too. Perhaps the best episode of season two, “Thanksgiving,” spans two decades’ worth of holiday meals at Dev’s friend Denise’s (Lena Waithe) house. It begins in 1995, with young Dev and Denise watching D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar” video in her bedroom, and that motif is reflected in syncs from Digable Planets’ “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That)” to New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain.” The choice to stick with vintage hip-hop and R&B even in scenes set during the current decade feels like a low-key acknowledgment that homecoming reunites us with our younger selves, for better or worse.
Ansari and Cowie are equally brilliant at using music to evoke a sense of place in a way that complements the show’s narrative. Just as season one’s “Nashville” abruptly plucks Dev and his then-girlfriend Rachel (Noël Wells) out of their New York lives, its country soundtrack of Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Brooks & Dunn supplants the show’s default mix of genres. The new season begins in Italy, with a neorealist-style black-and-white premiere complemented by the mid-century film scores of Ennio Morricone. When “Master of None” switches back to color for episode two, the soundtrack is updated with ’80s Italo disco—a choice that surely has viewers Shazaming Ryan Paris’ catchy-but-actually-sad earworm “Dolce Vita,” which plays over the opening credits.
I’ve criticized “The Handmaid’s Tale” for its uneven approach to music supervision. “Master of None” incorporates an even more diverse set of syncs, but that variety makes sense on a series where each episode has its own style and theme. Watching the show is like digging through the record collection of your most eclectic but least judgmental friend, the one who knows exactly which song will complement your current mood. Ansari and Cowie will make you a themed playlist that inadvertently introduces you to artists and even entire subgenres you’ve never encountered. They’ll also bounce manically around the store with you when “We Like to Party! (The Vengabus)” comes on at Target—because they, too, were teenagers when you couldn’t leave home without hearing it. These are the two main functions music serves for a generation raised on mp3s and “Where Are They Now?”: discovery and nostalgia.
Ansari and Cowie are not above the occasional music-geeky in-joke, either. (The snippet of David Bowie’s instrumental “A New Career in a New Town” at the end of “Door #3,” an episode where Dev lands a new gig, is this season’s best.) But it’s the delight they clearly take in exposing us to new songs as well as reminiscing over old ones that makes the show’s music supervision special. So many TV series aimed at urbanites in their twenties or thirties use their soundtracks to telegraph coolness. “Master of None” realizes there’s nothing cooler than creating moments that mirror the role music plays in our own lives.