The greatest musical performances on SNL
Ok, so this whole week is going to be SNL moments, one
because I am excited about this weekend’s performance; (Fucking Timberlake and
Fallon) And Two, because Saturday Night Live has always been on the cusp of new
music, and honestly it is where I have discovered a lot of cool music.
By The Way, Everyone is invited over to my house on Saturday
to watch this episode. BYOB! (Woman of the house, I hope this ok with you?!?!)
I mean seriously, I am considering doing a whole list of JT and JF musical work
on here!!
Ok, so today’s list is my favorite musical performances, These are not neccesarily the craziest or
wildest, that is tomorrows list, this one is strictly for the music, Literally
half of these are the performances where I began to love artists, or songs. With some of them even being the first time
that I had heard or seen them at all.
Quick Disclaimer, videos
of SNL are hard to come by, so what I have provided was the best I could find. Some may even disappear before you get to see them If you want better quality or what not you will have to talk to GE, I
personally put a phone call into Jimmy Fallon and tweeted him, hoping he could
help me get better clips, but I have yet to hear from him. So some of these clips are mirrored or in
weird sizes, but they provide the best audio I could find.
10. Patti Smith -Gloria -
April 17, 1976
I mean I have already highlighted this song as one of my
favorite songs, well, this version bares little resemblance to Van Morrison’s but it is pretty fucking serious.
Obviously I was not even thought about yet, Hell my parents were not even married yet.
And I don’t know how I really found this
performance, other than constant pop culture nerdiness, but I love it.
Patti Smith was left off of my list of favorite women
singers, because after a while I grow tired of her, but this song and obviously
My Generation and a few others are
memorable.
But this is just awesomeness at its best. It starts out subtley and builds into a
giant punk rock orgy for your ears. But the whole time Smith looks like she is
so pissed off, even when the band launches
into the chorus, and the shit is supposed to be fun, she is so pissed about it,
as if she doesn’t care for spelling. Like
“how dare you make me spell this shit
again”
And the whole fact that at the end she shouts Happy Easter
after repeatedly telling us Jesus didn’t die for her sins, That is so unbelievably
Punk Rock!
9. Green Day – Geek Stink
Breath- December 3, 1994
Ok, so by this point everyone had seen or heard of Green
Day. I was no exception, So this night was not incredibly memorable where
things are concerned in timeline of the band or my love for them. (That is a
crazy ass sentence, but it makes sense to me, so that’s all that matters)
The reason that this made the list was because, this was the
second song that they played, they played When I come Around first, which was
their current single, but then they played Geek Stink Breath. A song that they wouldn’t release as a single
until September of 1995 .
That is why it stuck in my head for so long, I heard it once
and I my friend Jacob had a vhs tape of
it, and that was the only way to hear this song for me for 9 months. (Remember children YouTube was invented until
2005)
The album it was on wasn’t released until October so I had
to wait 10 months to have my own copy of the song, but by then the video was on
mtv.
Also, a few other notes on this song, lyrically it was crazy as a 13 year old kid,
I didn’t know what Methamphetamine was, or the effects that it had on you, but
Billy Joel taught me through this song.
And probably the coolest thing was, the word shit was not
censored out. This happened because NBC
didn’t know the song at all, and Billy Joe sang with his mouth half shut so
half the words are unintelligible, but listen in the last verse you will hear
it.
Finally, in the end of the video, Where does Tre go? And why
is he so quick to get there?
8.The Blues Brothers –
Soul Man- November 18, 1978
This was The Blues Brothers Last performance on SNL, but it
was also their best.
This was the whole vision finalized and presented in a lot
of glory. The story, the intro it was all so important and so incredible.
Fucking Garrett Morris makes the greatest intro, I think every band should get
an intro like that (Mad Cats I am available if you are interested)
This version of the song is actually most people’s go to
version, and is still played on the radio today. I wasn’t there, and again, I
was negative 3 and a half years old; but I think this was the moment that
America took The Blues Brothers seriously.
“Play It Steve”
Anyone that I have ever heard sing this song or do it live
has had some variation of this phrase in the song, come on that’s culturally
Iconic.
Now I am not trying
to Blaspheme Sam and Dave; I know they said it first, but Belushi didn’t have to shout it, it would
have made no difference, but he did, It helped that the same Steve (Steve
Cropper) was in his band. Again I know
it was done first by Sam and Dave, but shout “Play it Steve” at a musician, and
irrevocably they will think of Soul Man by The Blues Brothers.
To be fair here is Sam and Dave’s Best version of this song,
In my opinion. Click Here
I love John Belushi, and this won’t be the last time you see
him this week. But he really does have a great voice, at least for singing the
blues, it works well and I love it. His
cartwheels and movements. And Akroyd’s dancing is beautiful and his bass voice, along with his good chops
on the harmonica, forget it these guys are killer (bees)
7. Alabama Shakes-
Hold On – February 16, 2013
This is the moment where I realized how sexist I was, when
it came to music. I had heard this song
a few times before and just sort of scrubbed it off as a blues rip off by a
dude trying to be every great blues singer I had heard. Sure he had a great
falsetto, I liked the song but I didn’t love
it.
Slap head moment of my life.
She says her own fucking name like 5 times throughout the
song. So, Brittany Howard, if you ever
read this, I am incredibly sorry that I thought you were a guy and so Fucking
impressed by you. I truly mean that!
It may seem weird that I am so impressed or enthralled
because of a woman singer. But seriously, if you have not ever heard this song,
you will be impressed I promise you.
Don’t get me wrong the whole band is good, not just the
singer, the performance is very killer. And so worth the watch.
I mean if you go all the way to the end, you will see how
much she puts herself out there leaving herself almost breathless by the end of
the performance. It really is something.
6. Neil Young –
Rockin in the Free World- September 30,
1989
This was the first time I saw Neil Young that I remember, I
was fucking 7 and thought that it was the coolest shit that I had ever
seen. I still liked Michael Jackson and
MC Hammer but this Neil Young dude was out of control.
I have since seen him in concert and he still plays the song
with that much intensity. It is so fucking cool it is a riot.
In this performance he was 44 years old and already a
legend, I mean he is in the Rock and roll hall of fame twice (and really should
be three times) but he is acting like all of the cool punk rock guys that I
would soon look up to. Young was working
out for a half an hour before the performance to get himself amped.
Never mind the fact that the song is an angsty denouncing of
the Bush administration(The old man one). The song is so killer I mean come on,
the solos will rip your hair out they are so loud and tight.
Caution, This is
seriously loud, if you are wearing headphones take them out !!! Seriously!!!
5. Vampire Weekend –
Diane Young - May 11, 2013
You bet your sweet bippy that this made my list, I know,
pretty recent eh? Well this is a
performance that got me hooked into a song.
This was the very first time that I had heard this song and I
was blown away by it. I had listened to Vampire Weekend previously in my life,
and I enjoyed them. I watched this episode of SNL to see Kristen Wiig, but when
I heard this song I was transformed into a huge Vampire Weekend fan, and fuck
the Target lady!
I mean, I still don’t know exactly what the song is about
but I don’t care, the way they do the vocal modulations is incredible.
And there is a dude in a top hat playing a bass saxophone
That dude is not even in the band, but you cant help but stare at a dude
playing a saxophone bigger than he and wearing a top hat. That guy makes anything that Kenny G does
sound like a queef (Yes I googled to make sure I was spelling it right)
There is some other electric stuff happening and I don’t know
who was controlling all that but hey the shit is good.
I then went out and bought the cd as soon as I could and
played it all summer. My kids love this
song just as much as I do, unless they are just pretending so they don’t get
grounded.
4. Paul Simon and
George Harrison – Homeward Bound-
November 20,1976
This could easily be one of those instances where I just
leave it at the title and show you the video,
But this is worth talking about. Paul Simon is the original JT, I mean think about it, successful group, even more successful solo career. Then hosting SNL numerous times. I love Paul Simon, don’t get me started, (Paul Simon will be featured a lot this week)
Ok but then you have 25 percent of the Beatles there too.
And George is no slouch himself, he made some of the most beautiful music to
come from the Ex Beatles.
So this performance has it all and it is enough to give you
chills and really get you excited.
Harrison and Simon just sort of fall into each other vocally and it
sounds beautiful.
Their guitar playing is so awesome too, I love at the end
when Harrison is riffing and Paul looks over with excitement, It is just so
cool that a star is in awe of someone else, playing his song nonetheless.
3. White Stripes –
Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground/We Are Going To Be Friends – October 19, 2002
The first thing you will notice is the John McCain intro. I
don’t care what your voting preference is, but I watched this episode for John
McCain, I thought he was actually quite funny. I didn’t realize I was going to have my face
melted off by a duo, then be serenaded about a half an hour later by the same
beautiful duo.
I took notice as soon as I heard Dead Leaves and the Dirty
Ground, The fact that these two people
could make so much awesome sounding noise with two instruments blew me away . I absolutely loved it.
Let me state that I remember thinking initially when it
aired, “ you mean the people with the lego video?” I mean the video for Fell In
Love with A Girl was pretty cool, but the song is by far not their best work. So
I wasn’t thrilled.
But man this was an awesome sound for their first song, then
on their second song. They become polar opposites. I mean to go from the way that Jack White was
thrashing all over the place in the first song to just calmly standing there
singing me something that sounds like
Simon and Garfunkel. It was so
beautifully visceral.
I can’t help but also point out that Meg playing drums
looked like she was on a good trip through both performances.
And I have always loved her drumming. She always sounds a
half a second off tempo and leaves a lot of space for Jack to play around
in. I mean that as a compliment.
2. Rage Against The
Machine –Bulls On Parade- April 13, 1996
Up to this point Rage was just a band that I had heard of,
and thought was wild. My cousin liked them and he usually liked good music. So
check it out right.
Holy Shit, I was enthralled, they were so angry and so loud,
and the things that Tom Morello did with his guitar were out of the world. I
mean he used like fifty different effects for one song. And he soloed like it was joke, and it sounds
cool as hell.
This performance for me was memorable because I fell in love
with Rage because of it and through Rage; I became more interested in politics
and world happenings. So for any of you
that remember my horrible 2010 mayoral campaign, thank this video for getting
me into politics.
Another thing that happened was all the controversy around
their performance. They didn’t do a second song, which I remember because I was
confused. Every band at this point always did 2 songs. Then I saw an MTV News update by Kurt Loder
talking about the incident. And I thought that Rage was even cooler. (I tried
to find a clip of this and was unsuccessful, but trust me it happened. It might
have been John Norris though. I tried
both)
You see, right before they went onstage Rage hung upside
down flags on their amps. And NBC was not happy about that ; so NBC workers tore the flags down seconds before the airing,
and then right after the song the band was asked to leave.
Really seriously Read
Rage’s account of the incident HERE – seriously read it, or I will hurt a
kitten!!
1. Justin Timberlake-
Suit and Tie – March 9, 2013
I mean think about it Timberlake is half the reason I am
making this list. Why wouldn’t a
performance of his be on the list.
This was an incredible episode; this was when my liking of
Justin Timberlake turned into love. (GO
ahead make all the man crush jokes you want) This was the day that Timberlake
joined the 5 timers club. He was introduced for his second song by the god
damned 3 Amigos!
I mean, come on, you will see him in more posts and
understand why he is so awesome. I promise.
But this was the moment when I really took him serious as a
musician, and I don’t know what took me so long. I mean I l knew he had a cool voice and could
dance like Michael. But this song has
like a 70s groove feel to it. Flute and horns. Come On Son!! Plus the whole big
band thing. And the dancers.
But Wait, There’s More. Jay Z shows up and does his own
part. Come on, this is Jigga we are talking about. The man fucks Beyonce-He
doesn’t need to do SNL, but he does it anyways, and just makes the performance
go off the charts.
I mean, usually rappers that are featured in songs, don’t
actually show up for live performances. (Try to find a clip of Katy Perry and
Snoop together) But this was different because not only did Jay Z show up, he
also killed it. Live rap usually doesn’t sound good. But this sounds good.
Timberlake is a lady killer. Just you wait and see.
Ok so There are My favorite musical performances. I hope you
enjoyed, I hope you got to see them all or at least tried to see them all. They
are worth it.
Keep in mind, before you think I left something important
off, Tomorrow I will give you some performances that had great performance
value, or were controversial or what not.
So don’t give away the big finish.
Today was strictly music.
Alright see you tomorrow, oh and can someone make a Taco Dip
to bring over on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment