Then it was rock time. I like the first Franz Ferdinand record. It is nothing monumental but there was a two month period last year where I couldn't get enough of it. I haven't heard anything from the new release so I was excited to hear some new songs and also to see the band perform. I'd never even seen one of their videos before so I was curious.
The band was fine. They looked good and had the right "moves" as Stone Groove once commented about Hall and Oates when we were watching them perform on SNL in the early 80's.
Rock & Soul Indeed
Franz Ferdinand's Salad Days
But the song was so incredibly repetitive. Okay, whatever. Often, the single isn't the best song anyway so I was still excited for the second song. But I couldn't believe they did a song from their last record. What? I've never seen that done before on this show. For the most part, every band plays its current single in the first slot and then the upcoming single is played next. How bad can the new album be if they don't even have enough faith to play two songs from it?
Apparently, the album does have some fans. I'm not willing to blow it off after watching one song on TV. But still, I wonder - how many bands actually play an old song instead of two new ones? That is pathetic.
Or is this the way things are done now on Saturday Night Live and I just wasn't aware of it? Is Lorne Michaels so into giving the masses what they want over and over and over again that he won't even let bands play two new songs anymore?
15 comments:
Rumor has t that SNL will be cancelled.
That would be horrible.
It is a bad cast and Jimmy Fallon cracking himself up is getting old.
But if SNL bounced back from the julia louse dreyfuss years it can bounce back again
not that i'm an expert since i haven't watched the show in over ten years but weren't the years you are referring to also the eddie murphy years? or am i wrong?
either way, there have been many worse years than that. the show sucks. and it won't be cancelled. everytime it sucks, there are rumors it will get cancelled.
Pedantic Weasel says, ummm- Jimmy Fallon left the show in 2004, but I get what you are saying. I agree with both of you though; for a while it looked like they were going to put together a pretty good cast and do a reasonable show despite the constant "its not as good as it used to be" refrain but this season sucks beyond measure. It seems to be an American standard [like the songs of Cole Porter or a topless Courtney Love] to hear any American cresting 30 compare the current SNL unfavorably to the incarnation he (and its mostly hims) was watching when he first discovered weed/booze/girls' bras come off/back acne. For years I dimissed this as akin to English harping about the national footie team (never as good as one's fathers generation) but having dipped into the show for the past few seasons I'm with you. The writing is horrible and its just not acceptable given the other stuff that is out there and that is written daily (Daily Show, Colbert Report). Not even the supposedly classic SNLs I saw on E a while back were funny all the way through (some were pretty dire, to be honest- Wild and Crazy guys wasn't really that funny; it was a funky shirt, pants, and hat gag stretched out to 5 mins) but this current crop is appalling. Too bad, becuase they have possibly the strongest female line up they have had in the show's existence and still most of the sketches go to the inept and in-jokey men in the cast.
Like it matters, anyway. I'm off to move house.
I love when you comment on things you have very little knowledge about, and Debbie Jimmy Fallon is long gone so please update your slags. There are actually a few talented comedians on the show, especially the females and the dude from the Wilco movie.
And Franz Ferd. suck do you really need a public reflection on that?????? You get scammed by every 2 chord and 4/5 cute faces band that comes along....The thrills, the strokes, rooney (oh wait I fell prey to that one as well....) just subscribe to indie teen beat already!
Occasionally commenting larry
WOW I really dont watch the entire show. I always give it a try but I watch more of the syndicated ones. I assumed Fallon was still on the show doing the same thing. I stand corrected. I thought I was watching the recent ones on Syndication. Serves me right for trying to be so clever
i feel like i've seen other bands do one new song and one old song but i don't have any hard facts. i will look into the matter and get back to you. i wouldn't be surprised if lorne and company force/nudge musicians to playing only the hits. look at the elvis costello radio radio episode. now they tout it as a cool edgy move but at the time he was banned from the show. lame ass.
Up until this year I have continued to try to watch 3-4 segments of SNL. For the past five years or so I would usually watch the opening skit, the monologue, the fake commercial, then do something else while. What I was waiting for was the band's first song (if I liked them) and, most importantly, Weekend Update. Even as the show went steadily downhill, I thought that Weekend Update still had its moments. It was the precursor to Daily Show, and... OK... let's be honest. My husband and I share a massive crush on Tina Fey. That's what it was really about. So while everything else sucked, we could still ogle Tina and talk about how smart and pretty she was. I liked it when it was her and Fallon, but I still watched last year with that other girl. She's OK, and hubby and I could create elaborate lesbian fantasies involving the two of them.
Now I've only watched SNL once this season, so I suppose she might have been sick... but they had HORATIO doing WU. Is nothing sacred? I need my weekly Tina fix!
Tina Fey had a baby, that's why she's been gone.....
I still watch every week. I am set in my ways.
You tell'em stone groove....always the voice ofreason
I dont even know where to begin with my ridiculous level of contempt for SNL. I don't have the effort. I have never seen one skit that has made me laugh.
There is something a little funny about a man dressed as an omlette. But maybe not funny enough to laugh out loud.
I laughed at a couple
John Travolta trying to convince his human captives that he isn't gay.
Justin Timberlake as one of the Bee Gees etc.
I think it's more about the length of the skits. The skit gets a laugh but then it drags.
Then there's Chris Farley- Van down by the river
Bill murray -Star wars lounge song
Also I think that Lorne Michaels is a bit obsessed about breaking the rules and provoking the FCC more than he is about making people laugh.
I can name some more skits but there are more skits that didn't make me laugh than there are that made me laugh,
SNL is a big part of pop culture.
iremember sneaking off to watch it with my brother on his small black and planning to switch to PONG if our parents walked in.
there are definitely moments in the show's history that are brilliant.
but the show has always had the annoying tendency to drive characters into the ground and/or not know how to end a sketch and letting it drag on way too long. when i was a kid i thought that ed grimsely character was amazing. recently, i saw a part of it again and couldn't believe how bad it was. obviously, i'm not saying that that character is a good example of the show being good but at the time, he was one of the more popular characters on the show.
the problem is not the cast, there are definitely talented members. but the writing is so pedestrian and bad. obviously, the cast shoulders some of the blame but i wonder about the brilliant stuff that never airs. i blame lorne michaels. get rid of him, hire someone with a clue, convince nbc to get a little edgier and the show could be great.
It doesn't happen terribly often, but FF are not the first to pull such shenanigans.
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