Saturday Night Live has featured music ever since it premiered in 1975, when Janis Ian and Billy Preston appeared as musical guests on the first episode. Over the years, the show has played host to hundreds of bands and artists and featured sketches that revolve around popular music.
In this feature, we’ll be taking a look at 13 of the best music moments on SNL from the last 25 years (that is, since 1999). I’ve chosen this time period because it’s tough to track down older SNL performances, and on Youtube in particular. As much as I’d like to feature, say, Elvis Costello’s performance of “Radio, Radio” in 1977, there’s no official upload from Costello or SNL on Youtube. There’s just a clip of him stopping “Less Than Zero” to go into “Radio, Radio”, and an upload that tilts the footage in a way to fool the copyright bots that is just no fun to watch. SNL has plenty of clips, sketches, and music performances online, and that pool is perfectly fine enough to base a list out of.
Even so, there’s a lot of 2000s performances that aren’t available in either an official upload or an unofficial one in high quality. This is why Radiohead, Outkast, Phish, and Prince are not on this list. With that out of the way, here are 12 great SNL music moments that you can watch right now on Youtube.
More Cowbell (2000)
Let’s start off with a classic. This famous sketch stars Will Farrell as the (fictional) cowbell player for ’70s proggy hard rockers Blue Oyster Cult as they record their hit “Don’t Fear the Reaper”. Farrell puts in an over-the-top performance as the excited cowbellist, as does Christopher Walken as (also semi-fictional) producer Bruce Dickinson, who wants to hear “more cowbell!”. The sketch was written by Farrell, who had heard “Reaper” on the radio and wondered what life was like for whoever played the cowbell on the song – it was actually performed by either drummer Albert Bouchard or producer David Lucas. To think people once thought this song was sinister or creepy; Many now associate it with Will Farrell in a chest bearing shirt clonking on a cowbell with gusto.
The White Stripes, “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” (2002)
After two indie albums, the White Stripes broke through with 2001’s White Blood Cells. By the time they landed on Saturday Night Live, the Detroit duo were part of a wave of young garage and post-punk bands that took the music magazines and rock radio by storm. Here, they perform album opener “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” complete with Jack White’s searing introductory guitar solo and Meg White’s consistently underrated drumming.
Lazy Sunday (2005)
Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island pals Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer were one of the most popular creative forces on Saturday Night Live in the 2000s and 2010s. Their second Digital Short, “Lazy Sunday”, proved to be a breakthrough moment for the team and one of the most of popular sketches of the period. In it, Samberg and fellow cast member Chris Parnell rap about the Magnolia Bakery, Google Maps, sneaking snacks into the movie theater and the Chronicles of Narnia.
The sketch was an immediate hit, and unauthorized uploads caused a sensation on the then-new Youtube, giving the site one of its first viral hits. Many people, including this writer, first visited Youtube almost 20 years ago just to see this sketch again. It might not be the Lonely Island’s best or most popular song these days, but it’s certainly one of the most impactful and culturally important SNL sketches of all time.
Sloths! (2007)
The last segment of the night, the “10 to 1 spot”, is usually reserved for oddball or experimental sketches that maybe wouldn’t work earlier in the night. Here’s one of those, a Lonely Island creation about Kristin Wiig’s hapless zookeeper broadcasting a crude, strange video about sloths created by college students. Like many of the best 10 to 1 musical sketches, “Sloths!” piles one absurdity atop the other in its lyrics. Sloths! has become something of a sleeper hit among Lonely Island creations – not as beloved or important as “I’m on a Boat” or “Lazy Sunday”, but something that sticks in the mind of anyone who was awake at 12:50 a.m. to see it premiere.
Magical Mysteries (2010)
Over the past 20 years, the Insane Clown Posse have gone from a punchline to regarded with a surprising amount of fondness (although the best their music usually gets is a “It’s not for me, but…”). At the midpoint of that sea change is this SNL parody of their memetastic video for “Miracles”. The original song is already plenty ridiculous with its magnets and long necked giraffes, but the “Magical Mysteries” video takes the original’s absurdity and runs with it: Where does the sun hide at night? isn’t a volcano just an angry hill? The goofiness of the video is aided by great, zany performances by Bobby Moynihan and a game Ryan Phillippe. Although this is another 10-to-1 sketch, so it may have been less viewed than some of the other sketches that night, it has become on of the most popular moments of its season.
Robyn, “Call Your Girlfriend” (2011)
Before there was Carly Rae Jepsen or Charli XCX, there was Robyn. The one time ’90s teen pop star and Max Martin protege reinvented herself in the 2000s as an indie-minded pop singer whose lack of commercial success in America was counteracted by her critical acclaim and devoted fanbase. In 2011, she performed future classics “Dancing on My Own” and “Call Your Girlfriend” on SNL. On “Call Your Girlfriend”, Robyn is a fountain of charisma and her dance moves are impeccable and precise. She may have never become a star the way that Lady Gaga did, but you couldn’t really tell that based on this magnetic performance. No wonder she’s continued to command that cult following in the decade and a half since.
Roundball Rock (2013)
A great show case for Tim Robinson in his one and only season in front of the camera on SNL, this sketch has the oddball comedy well known to fans of I Think You Should Leave. The sketch features new age keyboardist and one-time TV host John Tesh (Jason Sudeikis) auditioning his theme song idea for the NBA on NBC to network executives. Except, the now-familiar instrumental theme “Roundball Rock” is accompanied by the… poetic stylings of his brother Dave (Tim Robinson). What follows is both a ridiculous theme, but also a gonzo buildup that includes the Tesh brothers destroying the office with tiny hammers. A real gem of its season.
Kendrick Lamar, “i” (2014)
Before releasing his landmark To Pimp a Butterfly album, Kendrick stopped by SNL to perform a version of the advance single “i” backed by his live band. As you might expect, he’s electric here, and delivers an all timer of an Saturday Night Live performance. He wouldn’t be back on the show for another eight years, and while that 2022 performance was also great, it’s this 2014 showstopper that stands as Kendrick’s best of his three SNL appearances.
A Tribe Called Quest, “We the People” (2016)
The Saturday after the 2016 presidential election, A Tribe Called Quest performed for one of the final times on television. They brought a sense of catharsis to a comedy show, and also paid tribute to their late member Phife Dawg during their performance of “We the People…” from We Got It From Here, Thank You 4 Your Service, one of the best final albums of all time. Even all these years later, the performance still holds up.
Weezer discussion (2018)
Weezer are one of the most contentious bands of the last 30 years, with fans talking about them like they were a sitcom from the ’80s: Did they ever jump the shark? Is the new stuff still as good? That’s where this sketch comes in, where Leslie Jones and host Matt Damon get into an argument about the bands merits in a way that sounds like a forum thread come to life. (For the record: Your writer hates Weezer. All of it. Even the “good” albums. You should listen to Fountains of Wayne instead.)
BTS, “Boy with Luv” (2019)
In their Saturday Night Live debut, the super popular South Korean group BTS impressed with their synchronized dance moves, their undeniable charm, and their catchy hit “Boy with Luv”. The band wasn’t even at their career apex yet — “Dynamite” and “Butter” are still a year or two away — but you can tell BTS is well on their way to becoming the biggest band in the world here, given their charisma as performances and the reception they got from SNL‘s live audience.
Taylor Swift, “All Too Well” (2021)
Taylor Swift has become one of the most popular musicians in the history of the business, and this might be seen as the most Imperial moment of her Imperial phase. Instead of the normal two-song performance slot, Swift held down a single 10 minute slot to perform the entirety of the extended version of “All Too Well”, accompanied by the short film she directed screened behind her.
SNL 50 logo is courtesy of NBC and Broadway Video, and is taken from this video.
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