6OGs Special: Our Sweet 16 of SNL 50 Music

It’s been quite a few weeks for the 6OGs and our world here in Washington, DC. We’ll have much more to say about that, including in our next post, as well as the continued deluge of great albums and shows that are keeping us sane. But for this one, in honor of the SNL50 Special, OG Brian has laid out his Top 16 SNL Music Moments. An incredible mix that more or less charts the lifetimes of the 60Gs.

Album (um, songs) being rediscovered (at least 10 years old): Predicting and/or lamenting the decline of Saturday Night Live has been a media cottage industry going back to the days of Charles Rocket (which, incidentally, was when your humble writer first really discovered the show despite having some awareness of catch-phrases like “wild & crazy guys” and “cheeseburger, cheeseburger” before actually watching the early episodes via reruns). Sometimes the panic over SNL is warranted (see seasons 6, 11 and 20), and sometimes it’s just noise designed to fill column inches then and garner page clicks and podcast downloads now. Despite (or maybe because of) the show’s ebbs and flows in quality, it continues to maintain a cultural presence up through the SNL 50 celebration held on Valentine’s Day weekend, even if most people now consume the show bit-by-bit on YouTube or TikTok days after airing.

Music has always been a part of SNL’s format and identity, starting with season one, episode one musical guests Billy Preston (“Nothing From Nothing”) and Janis Ian (“At Seventeen”). Music has also been central to the “is SNL over?” discourse. Was SNL better in the Not Ready for Prime Time Player days as a countercultural force, occasionally spotlighting artists that would otherwise never end up on network TV (back when that mattered)? Did SNL simply grow old and become part of the mainstream, reflecting popular music tastes instead of influencing them, not dissimilar to many of the formerly young people who grew up with the show in the ‘70s and ‘80s? Did changes to the music industry and the way music is delivered to consumers make SNL an impossible goal for most artists (even those with relatively huge fanbases) and inessential to the biggest stars beyond an ego boost or an opportunity for a viral clip? I’d say the answer to all these questions is yes.

This all might sound critical, but take my word for it when I say I really am a fan of the house that Lorne built. So in honor of the SNL 50 anniversary weekend, I’m going to list some of my favorite musical performances. Not necessarily the best, not necessarily the most important (although in some cases they are) but my favorites. And I’m (mostly) limiting the list to musical guests, so apologies to “The Chanukah Song,” “Dick in a Box,” or any other music-themed sketches, although I doubt Adam Sandler or the Lonely Island guys are losing any sleep for being excluded from this list.

Enjoy the list and the accompanying Spotify playlist, feel free to leave your own favorites in the comments, and always remember that we gotta have more cowbell.

1. Elvis Costello – “Radio, Radio” (1977): I started watching SNL around the same time I discovered music beyond Top 40 radio, so learning about Costello’s legendary performance seemed about as badass as it got. He starts off playing “Less Than Zero” (a great song, btw) per record company instructions, then cuts it off and launches into the yet-to-be-released “Radio Radio,” which enraged Lorne Michaels and resulted in a ban from the show that lasted about 25 years. There have been conflicting reports as to what caused the ruckus – whether it was the song’s anti-corporate media message or Costello dropping unpredictability into Michaels’ tightly controlled machine (probably a mix of both, but given what we know about the show now, the latter explanation is likely the main cause of the ban). One of the most famous performances in the show’s history is also one of its best. Honestly, 48 years later it still looks pretty badass.

2. David Bowie – “The Man Who Sold the World” (1979): SNL closed out the ‘70s with a true WTF musical moment, an almost operatic version of “The Man Who Sold the World” with performance artists Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias (and introduced by none other than Martin Sheen). Bowie was dressed in an oversized plastic tuxedo, while Nomi and Arias, appearing to be monochromatic mime robots, carried Bowie to the microphone. Bowie came back for two more songs. He changed into a skirt for his classic “TVC15” and then had his head superimposed onto a marionette for “Boys Keep Swinging,” the latter of which ended with marionette-Bowie pulling out his little puppet-wiener.

3. The Replacements – “Bastards of Young” (1986): In terms of timing, this one couldn’t be more in my wheelhouse, and supposedly might never have occurred if the Pointer Sisters hadn’t canceled a few days before the show. One of my favorite bands, drunk out of their gourd on live TV, playing one of their best songs loud and out of tune with Paul Westerberg dropping an audible “come on, fucker” to Bob Stinson right before the guitar solo. Later they came out to perform an even drunker version of “Kiss Me On the Bus.” Of course to an 8^th grader it didn’t get more rock & roll than that. I would get to see the band live about five years later and realize that the ‘Mats drunk was not them at their best. The band’s antics reportedly earned them a lifetime ban from SNL, although Westerberg played SNL solo in 1993 and, in 2014, the reunited Replacements (Westerberg and Tommy Stinson) came back to 30 Rock to promote their tour on The Tonight Show.

4. Living Colour – “Cult of Personality” (1989): Both a personal favorite and a performance that has a strong case for one of the greatest that SNL has ever seen. Living Colour are virtually unmatched as a four-piece band. Vernon Reid is a virtuoso guitar player who absolutely shreds, Corey Glover’s vocals are as ferocious as his stage presence, and the rhythm section of bassist Muzz Skillings (later replaced by Doug Wimbish) and drummer Will Calhoun hold everything together in a tight package. This was an in-your-face performance that was bursting with electricity, and it continued on their second song “Open Letter (To a Landlord).” I saw the band twice over the next couple of years, and I can attest – they brought the same energy to a full 90-minute show that they displayed here. (Considering some of the individuals booked to host the show in the mid-2010s, it’s not a stretch to assume that Lorne didn’t really absorb the message of this song.)

5. Patti Smith Group – “Gloria” (1976): Those of us who romanticize the early years of SNL as a countercultural punch to the throat of stuffy old TV (myself included) like to imagine that the musical guests were a parade of the avant garde causing the normies to clutch their pearls a la Margaret Dumont. But peruse the list of musical guests in season one, and for every Gil Scott-Heron or Jimmy Cliff, you get an Anne Murray or Neil Sedaka. Then in April 1976, Patti Smith introduced punk rock to network TV with a charged performance of the lead track from her landmark album Horses (followed later by her energetic cover of “My Generation”). She even ended her version of “Gloria” by saying, “Happy Easter, CBGB.” Kids my age were too young to watch it live, but this is what we envisioned every ‘70s SNL performance to be, even if sometimes it was ABBA doing “Waterloo.”

6. Fear – “Beef Bologna” (1981): Another banned band that brought punk to network TV, this time of the hardcore variety. During one of the non-Lorne Michaels seasons, John Belushi agreed to return for a brief cameo on the Halloween show but only if the Los Angeles hardcore band Fear, of which Belushi was a huge fan, could be the musical guest. Producers at SNL also reached out to Ian MacKaye, then of Minor Threat, to organize bringing a group of DC punks up for an on-air most pit in front of the stage. Roughly 40-50 kids slamdanced on national TV while Fear tore through “Beef Bologna” and “New York’s Alright if You Like Saxophones,” right up until DC punk fan Bill MacKenzie grabbed a pumpkin to throw at the crowd, at which point NBC cut to commercial. The New York Post later (falsely) reported that Fear and their fans caused $200,000 worth of damage. Side note: Fear singer Lee Ving played Mr. Boddy in the 1985 comedy Clue.

7. The Pogues – “The Body of an American” (1990): For the St. Patrick’s Day episode in 1990, SNL invited The Pogues to be the musical guest. I don’t know if the producers were hoping for green hats and green beer, especially with Rob Lowe hosting. What they got was Shane MacGowan baring his teeth while rocking sunglasses indoors and holding a lung dart as tightly as he gripped the microphone, the band dressed in mostly funereal black playing their goddamn minds out. Their first number was “White City” off of Peace and Love, a rollicking jam about the changing urban landscape of London. But the real treat was the second song, “The Body of an American,” in which the American of the song finally makes it back to Ireland for his wake and burial. Death was a common topic for The Pogues, and it was rarely better than when MacGowan sang “I’m a free born man of the U.S.A.”

8. Public Enemy – “Can’t Truss It” (1991): Native New Yorkers Chuck D and Flavor Flav had long wanted to play SNL, and didn’t get their shot until the season 17 premiere (hosted by Michael Jordan). SNL was generally slow to embrace hip hop (not to mention developing skits for Black cast members) and PE went further than most viewers and even those with the show were accustomed to at that point – flanked by the S1Ws, Chuck D was in top form, relentlessly firing poetic bars over Terminator X’s beats while Flavor Flav was the perfect foil, coming across as the jester but purposeful with an underlying seriousness. “Here come the drums,” Chuck rapped, as they kicked it off with “Can’t Truss It,” a song comparing the brutality of slavery with the Black experience in the early ‘90s, and the lead single from Apocalypse ’91… The Enemy Strikes Black (let’s just say the following week’s musical guest, Color Me Badd, had a slightly different tone but gave The Lonely Island plenty to think about). PE followed it up later in the show with a powerful version of “Bring the Noise” from 1988’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Another group I saw live not long after their SNL performance.

9. Nirvana – “Territorial Pissings” (1992): We are now in peak grunge, and at this time Nirvana is without question the biggest band in the world. Their SNL performance might be the ultimate example of “one for them, one for us.” The first song was, of course, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I doubt the record company would have let them anywhere near 30 Rock if the band didn’t agree to play that mega-single. But for their next song, did they play one of the other singles from Nevermind? “In Bloom,” maybe? Nope. It was the abrasive, full-blast “Territorial Pissings,” complete with bassist Krist Novoselic’s intro mocking the chorus of “Freedom Rock” staple “Get Together” by The Youngbloods. It was raw disdain covered in major label packaging that would largely disappear from popular music in a few years. (Memo to the surviving members of Nirvana: if you guys want to play together, mazel tov, enjoy; but stop calling yourselves a reunited Nirvana. Without Kurt, it’s not Nirvana. I mean really – Post Malone??)

10. Hole – “Violet” (1994): Similarly, Courtney Love and company kind of buried the lede when they played SNL in 1994. Hole’s first song was a competent performance of “Doll Parts.” It was fine, albeit maybe a little sleepy. Of course that’s always been my opinion of “Doll Parts” as a song, so maybe I’m a little biased against it. But at 12:45am they came out again and played “Violet,” also from Live Through This, a blistering aural assault that Love delivered with full-on front-woman attitude. This was Hole at their apex, just before grunge was heading toward the exit. Have to wonder what George Foreman was thinking.

11. Beastie Boys – “Sure Shot” (1994): Season 20 had its problems, but the first few months of the season had its share of great musical guests (including R.E.M. doing a bangin’ version of “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” a few weeks earlier). Introduced by noted five-timer Alec Baldwin, this was the Beasties at the peak of their powers, promoting Ill Communication with arguably the best song in their catalog, “Sure Shot.” By this point, even casual viewers and fans knew the Beastie Boys as the quirky, eclectic, jokey wizards behind the “Sabotage” video, as opposed to the snotty kids who burst onto the scene in the ‘80s rapping in front of a giant rubber phallus. The wild performance of “Sure Shot” showed the audience that the Beasties had grown, but hadn’t grown old.

12. The White Stripes – “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” (2002): Jack White has become a favorite of SNL – in 2020, he was called in as a replacement when planned musical guest Morgan Wallen was told to stay home for violating COVID protocols, and most recently he headlined “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert.” But it all started here. Introduced by host Senator John McCain (look, McCain seemed like a genuinely decent person despite the fact that I disagreed with him on many things, but having politicians host has probably aged worse than any joke from the ‘70s or ‘80s), Jack and Meg brought Detroit blues-rock to network TV with a thundering performance of the opening track from 2001’s White Blood Cells, one of many times the two-piece band produced a sound that exceeded their numbers. Later in the show, the Stripes gave the audience a hint of their full range with the softer “We’re Going to be Friends.”

13. Paul Simon – “The Boxer” (2001): SNL sometimes uses music in the cold open, and few were more emotional or meaningful than Paul Simon – good friend of Lorne Michaels – performing “The Boxer” in front of a group of New York firefighters while wearing an “FDNY” hat to start the first show after the 9/11 attacks (in 2025, I’ll refrain from discussing the Giuliani aspect of this). While the status of a comedy show was not at the top of everyone’s mind back then, once it was reported that they were returning to Studio 8H, I remember a lot of discussion as to how SNL would handle this moment. They nailed it.

14. The Strokes – “Last Nite” (2002): The early aughts were known, in part, for the “rock is back” scene centered around New York (often referred to, in hindsight, as the “Meet Me in the Bathroom” era, for the excellent Lizzy Goodman book of the same name). The White Stripes were part of this narrative but not really part of the scene, since they were from Detroit and by this point had already released their third album. The scene really got going with the release of Is This It, the stellar 2001 debut by The Strokes. Six months later they brought their version of downtown rock to Studio 8H, looking like the coolest motherfuckers on Earth for both “Last Nite” and “Hard to Explain.”

15. Kendrick Lamar – “i” (2014): Long before the beef (or at least long before it became a matter for public discourse) and long before the halftime show, K-Dot made his second SNL appearance to promote the release of his phenomenal To Pimp a Butterfly. In front of a full band, Lamar spit dense, rapid-fire verses, setting himself up as the preeminent hip hop artist of the next decade. The performance was visually stunning, as the band was covered in dark and K-Dot was bathed in purple spotlight as he stood at the mic (significant, since the previous week’s musical guest was Prince, in what would be his last network TV appearance). Jay Rock came out for the second song, the poppier “Pay for It,” which featured verses from Lamar and a hook from Chantal.

16. The Blues Brothers – “Soul Man” (1978): I’m ending this list with the first true breakout characters from SNL – Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively). They originally debuted toward the end of season 3 as a musical guest and spent the following summer opening for Steve Martin on a massive standup comedy tour. But it was their next appearance on SNL, early in season four playing “Soul Man” in the cold open, that would become legendary, presumably due in no small part to MTV playing this clip as a music video in the ‘80s (also of note: host Carrie Fisher appeared in The Blues Brothers movie as Jake’s heavily-armed jilted ex). While I said I (mostly) wouldn’t include music-based sketches, I’m making an exception here because The Blues Brothers band was the real deal. Members included Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn, both of whom played with the Stax records house band and Booker T. & the M.G.’s, among others; Matt “Guitar” Murphy, a blues hall of famer who played with the Howlin’ Wolf Band and Memphis Slim; and a horn section that included saxophonist “Blue” Lou Marini and trombonist Tom Malone, the latter of whom played with Blood, Sweat & Tears. Belushi was always the center of attention, but watching the clip now, my focus is drawn to Aykroyd’s hype man dancing that would no doubt make Bez tip his cap. (Brian)