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‘Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music’ Is a Spectacular, Definitive History of the Most Influential Music Stage in America: TV Review
Summing up 50 years and nearly 1,000 'SNL' musical performances is a tall order, but directors Questlove and Oz Rodriguez have done a masterful job.
David Bowie — who delivered arguably the best all-time “ SNL ” performance in 1979 — the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Tupac, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Jack White, Radiohead, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Waits, Coldplay, Bon Jovi, Taylor Swift, Mary J. Blige, Donald Glover, U2, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, Billy Joel, No Doubt, Tom Petty, Elton John, Olivia Rodrigo, Bruno Mars, and Prince are just a few of the artists who have appeared on the show, and (usually briefly) in this doc. (The only time the history feels revisionist is the retrospective look back at Sinead O’Connor’s deeply controversial and much-criticized — and prescient — statement about the Catholic church on the show in 1992, wherein she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul as a comment against child abuse.) Yet it doesn’t only cover musical guests: There are also extensive segments on their parodies (from John Belushi’s Joe Cocker to Jimmy Fallon’s Mick Jagger to Maya Rudolph’s Beyonce) and Lonely Island’s pioneering digital shorts, which ended up numbering over a hundred.
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