SNL's Continued Downward Spiral Thread

Back to the thread title, I'd be interested in hearing opinions about how Emma Stone performed on SNL. As I said, I have a limited sample, since I only saw the last 20-25 minutes. Apologize in advance for not scrolling back through the pages of this thread, if this has already been addressed.

 

I saw some show on SNL years back and the people who book the music said they try to get superstars or "the next big thing." That way they're not just cherry-picking popular bands; How many people in the US heard of Adele before she went on SNL (none, except liars). Who knows - in two years Lana Del Ray could come out with the next great album and everyone will remember the time she bombed on SNL.

 

Also, girl sexy.

 

This.

 

I watched two skits on Saturday, the second of which was called "Technology Hump," and it involved people pretending to have two pieces of technology (like a cell phone and a digital camera or an Xbox controller and an iPad) have sex.

Yep, that was on SNL this week. Yep, that made the cut during the writers' table session. Yep, that was an idea a writer thought was good enough to bring to the table.

Ugh.

 

Adele's first album had been out -- and on the charts -- for 10 months before she appeared on SNL.

Lana Del Rey had two songs on YouTube before she appeared on SNL.

 

Yes, Lana Del Rey's appearance was a little over the top in that regard. I'd think you should at least be more than a viral video before playing the big stage.

 

I like the idea that they're mixing in some up-and-coming acts.

Kimmel and Fallon have done a pretty good job of doing this on the regular late-night shows.

 

They've been playing Lana del Rey's "Video Games" a lot on Sirius/XM's "The Spectrum". Totally don't get the love for either the singer or the song. Not bad, not good. Unremarkable to me.

 

The fourth episode of "Saturday Night Live" had two musical guests: Loudon Wainwright III and ABBA. Which is about as much of a musical whiplash as possible. According to "Live from New York," Dick Ebersol really pushed hard for ABBA and forced them on the show. (They were the only band that ever lip-synced.) Writer Michael O'Donoghue responded by having them perform on a set made to look like the Titanic and having it sink at the end.

My understand is that they try to book a new/"fringe" act for every two to three established act that appeals to a broader audience. It was definitely more skewed toward breaking new bands before the late 1990s, when the network came in and enforced several changes and basically stopped letting Lorne Michaels have free reign on all aspects of the show. You'll see a lot more Britney Spears/Christina Aguliera type artists on than ever before.

SNL was the first show to have Devo on (performing "Jocko Homo" and "Satisfaction") - there's no way they would push the envelope that far today, or have a modern equivalent to Ornette Coleman - who was on with Milton Berle (!) in 1978 (someone like John Zorn).

And anyone complaining about SNL musical guests should remember that Anne Murray was on during the first season, for God's sake.

 

Jude Law and I missed something somewhere.

 

I didn't know Ashlee Simpson was a band? And I meant obviously lip-synced, versus "singing to a pre-recorded track that is basically lip-syncing but not really" and then fucking that up.