All posts in: Saturday Night Live

22 Dec 2020

Dua Lipa on Saturday Night Live

https://youtu.be/oDsyocmK3XI

Admittedly, I have not been doing a great job of keeping up with Saturday Night Live this year. However, I’m glad that I went back to watch these Dua Lipa performances from this past weekend’s episode. Dua Lipa had one of my favorite albums of 2020 and we’ve been a fan of hers from the start. She’s also someone I would categorize under “Most Improved” as her performances and her dancing have reached new levels this year. For the appearance on Saturday Night Live, Dua performed her two hits from the last year off her album, “Don’t Start Now” and “Levitating.”

https://youtu.be/rl7rfTWVubE

I don’t quite understand the hat that she’s wearing in this “Levitating” performance, but I’m too tired to truly critique this.

22 Nov 2020

Blog Roundup

  • Get Out of Thanksgiving With This Interactive COVID Risk Map [Lifehacker]
  • How Lorne Michaels Created Saturday Night Live [Far Out]
  • Curfews Will Do Almost Nothing to Stop the Spread of COVID [Curbed]
  • 10 Winter Cocktails to Warm You Up this Season [MyDomaine]
  • Second Life Podcast: Jenna Lyons (former President of J. Crew and now Founder of LoveSeen) [WhoWhatWear]
  • The Making of BTS’ “Dynamite” with David Stewart | Deconstructed
  • It doesn’t Matter If Trump Never Concedes, Twitter is Giving @POTUS to Biden [Gizmodo]
  • Why Even A Small Thanksgiving Is Dangerous [FiveThirtyEight]
  • Timelapse Videos Show How Much Our Houseplants Move in a Day [Moss and Fog]
  • People Are Waiting 12 Hours In Line For the First In-N-Out in Colorado [SFGATE]
  • A Pioneering Vietnamese-American Pop-Up Bows Out After A Stellar 9-Year Run [SF Eater]
  • Carine Roitfeld Has Some Thoughts on Emily in Paris [The Cut]

26 Jan 2020

Halsey on SNL

https://youtu.be/jGYo1bmqn40

There is no doubting how talented Halsey is as a performer because she’s been the musical guest on Saturday Night Live for two consecutive seasons. And each time, she continues to blow me away. I first heard of “You Should Be Sad” not too long ago and didn’t recognize the country spin on it at first. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I wrote off Halsey way back when after her first collaboration with The Chainsmokers. While that may have been one sliver of her career, it definitely doesn’t speak to the rest of it showcasing just how much she can do. I was a fan of both of her performances last year, but these two are now my favorites!

22 Dec 2019

Performance of the Day

https://youtu.be/HuENwwT5rSg

In the last Saturday Night Live episode of the year, and with Eddie Murphy as the host, Lizzo performed two of her hits. She nailed it as she performed her holiday rendition of “Good As Hell.” While she steals the stage herself, I also couldn’t take my eyes off her pole dancers in the background – that strength! I’m not sure if any of you have ever taken a pole dancing class, many of my friends in the past couple years, but it is so tough!

24 Nov 2019

Will Ferrell’s SNL Monologue

It’s a little embarrassing how hard I laughed watching this yesterday evening. I liked it so much that I stopped Kevin and I in the middle of a football game so that I could turn this on for us.

13 Oct 2019

Camila Cabello – Easy (SNL Performance)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCmP68E3n4g

So I loved this song before I watched the performance, but does how much more I like Camila’s music now vs. before have anything to do with her relationship with Shawn? Absolutely, yes. We’ve been following it closely since “Senorita” came out, but even before then the two have been writing a number of songs about each other. And we’re here for it.

15 Sep 2019

What Should We Do About Shane Gillis?

Shane Gillis (center)

I had been debating all week since I heard the news whether I was going to write a post or not. Then I remembered that the problem is not saying anything at all. Not speaking up means people like Shane Gillis can continue to blur the lines of blatant racism and comedy.

This week, Saturday Night Live announced that there would be 3 new cast members added to their roster. In two weeks, the new season will welcome comedian Bowen Yang as the first Asian cast member to join in 44 years. It’s hard to praise the series because in a way, it’s unacceptable for the series to go this long to add Asian diversity, but we will take it. However, overshadowing this news is that comedian Shane Gillis will also join the roster. As quickly as this was announced, the internet dug up clips from Gillis in which he was racist, sexist, and homophobic. People didn’t have to look too far because a lot of this material was posted just in 2018.

I considered not watching the clip – specifically the one from his podcast with Matt McCusker. Why? I’ve heard it all before growing up as an Asian American. However, I couldn’t write about it if I didn’t have the context. What I heard was worse than what I imagined it would be. In 2019, we should be beyond this already. Not only is this not comedy, but Gillis’s words are harmful. They breed hatred and this kind of behavior can’t and shouldn’t continue.

I grew up loving Saturday Night Live. I’m thrilled that Bowen has this opportunity, but to think of him sharing the same stage as people like Shane Gillis? It’s hard for me to grasp. So what do we do about Shane? Yes, I’m sure in some ways he has worked hard to get to this moment himself as well, but at the expense of hurting and diminishing others. Do we think Shane Gillis should be cancelled? Saturday Night Live should come forward with a statement. I’m not sure what that statement should look like, but my take is that he’s not the right person for this job. Shane will find other work, but he shouldn’t have the privilege of being on a platform like Saturday Night Live or a network like NBC.

[Source]

05 May 2019

Shawn Mendes Performs on SNL

Shawn is 20 years old and it’s a little weird to find ourselves attracted to him, but I will say that I find him extremely talented. His songs are simple and complex at the same time and usually written alongside Teddy Geiger. If some of you have been following Yow Yow! since the early days, then you also know that we find Teddy to be an incredible songwriter. She still is today and the two of them are very close.

I was listening to the radio today while running errands and of course, this song was everywhere. We learned that this song was actually written for Dua Lipa and in a turn of events, he kept it for himself. It was the right move because this song is exquisite. Since I’ve been battling insomnia from my jet lag, I basically listened to this song on loop after his SNL performance for hours straight afterwards. It spiraled into Shawn Mendes YouTube videos, but we don’t have a problem with this.

14 Apr 2019

Last Night I Became A BTS Fan

Until last night, my exposure to BTS was quite limited. I saw that they were at the Grammys and remembered thinking, “How cute are they?!” It didn’t go much further than that. It wasn’t news to me that they were a big deal. I’ve been hearing about BTS for what feels like years and they seem to be a group of likable men. This performance really surpassed all my expectations. I could watch them dance on repeat for hours. And while I have no idea what they’re singing and what these lyrics mean, it does not bother me one bit.

Readers, I know I’m late to the game. Don’t hate me. But how many of you have been devoted fans before now?

11 Feb 2019

Creating Saturday Night Live: Cue Cards

I’m probably going to sound like a grandma here, but one of my favorite things to do is watch Saturday Night Live (at 8:30 PM) on Saturdays! Even if the whole show is a snooze, I’m at least in it for the performances and Weekend Update with Jost and Che. Since working in music, production in general has always been fascinating to me – of any kind. I really enjoyed this quick bit on how cue cards originated on Saturday Night Live and how they’re still being used.