Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music

The 6 minutes opening montage of musical guests performing on SNL is brilliant and inventive. 

The rest of the documentary sails along doing what you would expect from an NBC produced documentary about the storied franchise celebrating 50 years on the air. 

Which is, everyone (perhaps rightly) pats themselves on the back a lot. 

According to Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music the historic comedy variety show was the place to be for musicians who were about to break big and a nurturing home for talented weirdos and a cultural icon that was unafraid to bring in artists that polite society wanted silenced. 

Honestly, can’t argue with most of that. I’m just not sure how much credit should be awarded for having Nirvana on your show when they were selling 100,000 albums a week. 

Adele makes a stronger case by noting that her first appearance on the show moved her album from the middle of the charts to the top — and that it happened on the flight home from NYC to England. 

She says, years later and still astonished, that she never believed in overnight successes until it happened to her. 

You are in good hands knowing that Questlove directed the documentary. And if you haven’t seen his Summer of Soul you should really get on that. 

SNL is such a cultural institution that I can mark my life by its controversies. 

So I distinctly remember when Sinead O’Connor ripped up a photo of the pope but I had no idea that Elvis Costello had ever been in trouble with the powers that be for changing a song at the last minute. 

The documentary moves expertly through its themes pointing out how SNL embraced rap music in its infancy, was willing to go with avante garde acts and blends in a litany of musical highlights. 

I’m a little bummed there is no country music at all in the thing but that’s probably to be expected from a show that for fifty years has desperately wanted to be seen as cool by whomever was in high school at the time. 

Ignore me, I’m bitter in my old age, this is entertaining and wonderful. If you are an SNL fan you are sure to enjoy it.