Headline : The 50 Best ‘Saturday Night Live’ Musical Performances

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When Lorne Michaels conceived of Saturday Night Live, he knew that rock music would draw audiences, but he also knew that even if a musician had an off night, giving audiences a break from nonstop comedy would make the sketches seem funnier. Now, 50 years and more than 900 shows later, there have been plenty of off nights, but there’s also been an abundance of mind-blowing and history-changing performances, some of them in genres like hip-hop that barely existed when the show started.

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).

We also didn’t consider performances that were part of comedy segments, which ruled out classic material like Taylor Swift’s “Monologue Song,” Steve Martin’s “King Tut,” and Justin Timberlake’s “Dick in a Box.” These 50 songs, however, did much more than give the Not Ready for Prime Time Players some extra time for a costume change.

John Belushi wasn’t averse to using his musical talents for comedy — check out his Joe Cocker impression sometime — but wanting to play the classic R&B they loved, he and Dan Aykroyd took the Blues Brothers seriously. That didn’t mean they stinted on showmanship as Jake and Elwood Blues: they had trilby hats, dance moves, even a cartwheel. (And the original “Soul Man” guitarist, Steve Cropper, reprised his licks.) They weren’t Sam & Dave, but they were arguably the best karaoke performers of the 20th century.

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