Saturday Night (2024)

[thatguy]

thatGuy reviewed it. I saw half of it last night. Will finish tonight.

I did? I don't recall seeing it...

I did watch the SNL Music special last night, live on Peacock. I missed the first 20 min. It was good, stressing how much the musical guest spot impacted culture, made careers, and the performances are a time capsule. 

Belushi & Cocker
Sinead tearing up the photo of the pope
Introducing Rap and hardcore Punk

They covered famous cameos and artists that participated in sketches.

They covered musical parodies/impersonations. 

It was overall good, nostalgic, and a vehicle for lots of commercials.

I'm guessing I missed them talk about the cowbell sketch and when Julee Cuise filled in when Sonead refused to appear as Andrew Dice Clay was hosting. If they covered the SNL outro song, it was in that first 20 min. If they didn't, it was an omission. They should have covered the SNL band and that song that has been played so many times...

https://kottke.org/25/01/questloves-fant...-snl-music

Oh this is just delightful: for the opening of his documentary film on the history of music on SNL he co-directed with Oz Rodriguez, Questlove produced what the NY Times calls “a high-speed, six-minute DJ mix of SNL music highlights”. So. Good.


From the same piece in the Times, Questlove explains how it came about:

It’s impossible for me to phone anything in, even if I wanted to. I just wanted to throw the ultimate D.J. gig and hook you in from the gate. It started off small, and it couldn’t stop.

In the beginning, I was just going in five-year intervals — what’s the three strongest moments between ‘75 and ‘80? — and do it that way. But I’m so programmed as a D.J. it’s physically impossible for me to gather a group of songs together and not start — that’s my version of improvisation. And once you put, like, 17 songs together, you have a conversation with yourself: “OK, are we really doing this?”

My producers said: “It’ll never happen! The clearance, the clearance!” This is the first time that I realized my diplomatic position in music. People say, “Ahmir, you might be the next Quincy Jones, because your whole thing is more social than creative, knowing the right people, knowing who’s who.” There were at least 19 situations in which I had to come hat in hand to said person, and mind you, this is for two seconds — Michael Bolton singing “Love Is a Wonderful Thing” just once.

He got every clearance except for Luciano Pavarotti:

The only outright no that I couldn’t fix was that Luciano Pavarotti was going to be part of the Bobby McFerrin-Busta Rhymes mash-up. But it was too much to explain to his estate, and I couldn’t go to Italy and whatever. It could have been brilliant, Bobby McFerrin and Pavarotti going toe to toe.

The film premieres tonight on NBC and will be available on Peacock starting tomorrow.

Update · Jan 27, 2025
According to Questlove’s Instagram post, the musical montage was edited by John MacDonald, Coordinating Producer of The Tonight Show. (via @solace.bsky.social)

--tg