Every Song in ‘Master of None’ Season 3 Was Chosen for a Reason
After nearly four years away, Netflix's Master of None—a passion project of creators Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang—is back for Season 3. But Season 3 takes a different approach; where Season 1 and 2 focused on the character of Dev (Ansari) as he navigated different slice of life topics (but mostly focused in on dating and relationships), Season 3 shifts the lens to his friend Densie (Lena Waithe) for a truncated season focusing on her marriage to a new character, a woman named Alicia (Star Wars star Naomie Ackie).
At only five episodes, the season is half the length of the first two installments. And where Ansari's Dev was previously the primary focus of the show, he now only appears as an ancillary character. The show's sort of wide-ranging comedic lens instead shifts to one clearly inspired by legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (either a film or a miniseries, depending on who you talk to, that is also being adapted into an HBO miniseries starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain later this year). But amidst all the change, one thing remains the same: the show's inspired musical choices, constantly finding the right musical cue for its character moment.
Zach Cowie has been the music supervisor for all three seasons of Master of None, and he says he was looking to capture reality when choosing the music for Season 3. And in that search, he connected everything with one unifying theme: "Less is more," he says of this season's cues.
He worked super closely with Ansari and Yang, and when Ansari first told him about the basic Season 3 story arc, he immediately had the idea to include Jessye Norman. "My ex’s uncle turned me on to her a few years back, and i’m so grateful that he did," he says. "She became a bit of a northstar for all of us thru the whole process."
Cowie adds that he saw Norman as Season 3's "narrator," and was inspired by the silence in the theater when he saw Alfonso Cuarón's Roma. Any other pieces of music, he adds, came about as he began to see the dailies, and see the performances come to life on screen. One piece of music was Ansari's idea: "Danza Kuduro," or, as Cowie calls it, "the Fast and Furious song that plays in the laundromat." This was just a purely relatable moment: "Hilarious yet somehow deeply moving," he says. "We’ve all done that load of laundry."
There was also room for one more easter egg in the Season 3 soundtrack. Cowie says he learned just about everything he knows about classical music from driving around Los Angeles at night and listening to Jim Svejda's KUSC radio show (and also reading a book that he wrote). So he made sure fit that in. "As a nod to my appreciation, I arranged to have him be the voice on the radio to announce the Jessye Norman track when Denise is eating a cheeseburger," he says.
So, in case any of those songs were new to you, or you're eager to hear them again, we've got the entire soundtrack to Season 3 of Master of None below.
"Ravel: Chansons madécasses, M. 78: No. 1, Nahandove" - Dalton Baldwin Jessye Norman Michel Debost Renaud Fontanarosa
"Everybody Everybody" - Black Box
"Stevie" - Duke Ellington, John Coltrane
"Who Knows Where the Time Goes - Live at Philharmonic Hall, New York, NY - October 1969" - Nina Simone
"L'invitation au voyage" - Dalton Baldwin, Jessye Norman
"Je te veux" - Dalton Baldwin, Jessye Norman
"Beau Soir, L.6" - James Levine, Jessye Norman
"Songs from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn": Urlicht" - Irwin Gage, Jessye Norman
"Danza Kuduro" - Don Omar, Lucenzo
"Allegro in F Major, K. 1c - 11ten Decembris 1761" - Bart Van Oort
"Stuck" - Peven Everett
"Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45: V. "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit"" - Jessye Norman, Klaus Tennstedt, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Cooke
"5 Lieder, Op. 41: 1. Wiegenlied" -Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Jessye Norman, Kurt Masur
"Back To Life" - Caron Wheeler, Soul II Soul
"Nuit d'étoiles, L. 4" - James Levine, Jessye Norman
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