celeb news Rolling Stone: The 50 greatest SNL musical performances ever (feat. many pop girls)

November 6, 2024

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For the show's anniversary, we collected the 50 greatest musical performances in Saturday Night Live history. Note that some major acts never played the show, while others showed up during career troughs (because that's when they needed an extra boost) or couldn't figure out how to bust out of the screen when people were waiting for Weekend Update. We limited ourselves to one song per musical act (although we gave waivers to performers who backed other acts up).

Rolling Stone

Pop girls & ATRL faves featured on the list:

49. Chappell Roan, "The Giver" (2024)

47. Robyn, "Dancing On My Own" (2011)

36. Olivia Rodrigo, "drivers license" (2021)

33. Beyoncé, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (2008)

27. Billie Eilish, "bad guy" (2019)

23. Miley Cyrus, "Wish You Were Here" (2020)

17. Phoebe Bridgers, "I Know The End" (2021)

13. Taylor Swift, "All Too Well" (2021)

7. Kendrick Lamar "i" (2014)

6. Patti Smith Group, "Gloria" (1976)

4. Prince, "Partyup" (1981)

1. David Bowie, "The Man Who Sold The World" (1979)

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David Bowie closed out the 1970s by reaching back to their beginning, performing "The Man Who Sold the World," the half-forgotten title track from his 1970 album. Because he was David Bowie, he was looking forward at the same time as he was looking back, so he recruited the New York City performance artists Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias to join him on Saturday Night Live. They prepared a declamatory, semi-operatic version of the song — which was brilliant and upstaged almost completely by Bowie's outfit, inspired by the Dada art movement. His plastic "tuxedo" was so restrictive, Nomi and Arias had to carry the singer to his microphone.

Bowie did two more songs that evening: the 1976 single "TVC15," for which he donned a pencil skirt inspired by the outfits of Chinese flight attendants (accessorized with a stuffed pink poodle with an embedded TV screen), and his recent single "Boys Keep Swinging," for which he used early green-screen technology to superimpose his head on top of a marionette's body. (NBC censored the lyric "other boys check you out," but Bowie got a measure of revenge when the puppet unfurled its phallus at the end of the song.) The 1980s were full of promise and peril for both Bowie and Saturday Night Live, but his appearance on this night distilled the best aspects of their 1970s: experimental, provocative, and laugh-out-loud funny.