'SNL' Just Wrapped Its 45th Season: It's Time To Cruelly Rank Its Musical Guests
We're roughly two months into a collective crisis that's kept us sheltered in place, cut off from friends and fearful for the future of our health, our families and our economic well-being. Our emotions frequently form a thick slurry of anxiety, worry, boredom, rage and desperate desire for threads of normalcy; for moments of mundanity; for the calming comfort of the familiar.
Which is why, in the interest of national unity — of shared struggle, of resilience, of all-in-this-togetherness, of patriotism — it is vital that we reflect on the most recent season of Saturday Night Live and mean-spiritedly rank the quality of its musical guests. We did this last year (with apologies to Greta Van Fleet) and the year before (with apologies to James Bay, whose performance almost definitely happened, though we can't be 100 percent certain). So now, friends, that tradition continues.
A few quick notes about SNL's 45th season, which ended Saturday: Due to COVID-19, what was intended to be a 21-episode season was shortened to 18 shows, only 15 of which took place before a live audience. The last three, nicknamed Saturday Night Live at Home, were cobbled together from performers' residences — including those of the musical guests. SNL's Studio 8H stage isn't always kind to musicians, but it's bound to present advantages over a setting that provides no audience feedback. We'll attempt to take that into consideration.
Finally, maybe it was the smaller sample size, but no one in this year's lineup toppled headlong into a grisly train wreck the way certain acts (cough Kanye West cough DJ Khaled cough Greta Van Fleet) did last season. So last place in Season 45 should be read as more "meh" than... you know, traumatic.
All right, let's do this! (Oh, and we've linked to every performance that's still officially available on YouTube.)
18. The Weeknd, "Blinding Lights" and "Scared to Live"
Okay, so let's start with the weirdly busted-up face: As with The Weeknd's other appearances in support of his new album , the singer performed on wearing makeup designed to make it look as if he'd just broken his nose. (The
