Jan 27, 2025
By Music Mukbang Dad

In the seventies Saturday Night Live was a cultural touchstone without rival. If you stayed up late to watch legendary comedic bits by the likes of John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner- sometimes you were rewarded with comedy gold. After watching Questlove’s cleverly edited and heavily hyped first 6 minutes of montages, you might believe that every episode of SNL contained a Grammy level music performance (I can personally attest they all definitely weren’t Grammy level!). During the first five years of SNL when the musical guest came on, that was my signal to go make popcorn.
To their credit, they did address some of the reasons for the spotty earlier music performances. Partially blaming the experimental music leanings of New York City at the time. Clearly SNL did have a reversal of fortunes, as it applies to the quality of performers they have been able to showcase since the seventies. All you need to do is look at the current season, you’ve already had established stars like Billie Eilish, and Charlie XCX, up and comers such as Shaboozy, and legends like Stevie Nicks.
The show also addressed but didn’t apologize for (whether they need to or not is not up to me) for some of the more controversial musical guest appearances, such as Sinead O’Connors infamous performance where she expressed her disappointment in the Irish Catholic Church for their handling of sexual abuse cases (including her own). Where in the performance she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II. Kanye West was also in this segment for hijacking the end of his episode to pontificate on his world view. Lastly, Rage Against The Machine’s upside down flag controversy, which kicked the band out on the sidewalk after only playing one song. Tom Morello shared that even though they had been given the boot, he still went to the after party.
I feel that too much of the show was spent patting itself on the back for being “the champion of rap, hip hop and innovative music”. They also spent significant time trying to convince the viewers of the value of comedic music skits. (I wonder if they weren’t trying to convince themselves at the same time).
Some of the stories and footage are not exclusive, though I still give Questlove and co-director Oz Rodriguez credit for sifting through so much footage to piece together the montages. Though, similar to Questlove's academy award winning documentary Summer of Soul, this show was interesting- however not really worth three hours of your time. As a documentary focusing on the music of SNL it was understandably light on full versions of the highlighted performances. Luckily we don’t live in the seventies and can find most of the music from past SNL episodes online. So, if you want to see that first appearance of Nirvana on national TV it’s right there, without a three hour commitment.
The show does bring up a bigger question though! In a media landscape where broadcast television is competing for viewership against formats such as Short Form Video and CTV, how much longer will SNL be the touchstone for future music and comedy?
If you didn’t watch it “live”, Ladies and gentlemen…50 years of SNL music is available on Peacock. (this article is not Sponsored)
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