Customer Reviews

Saturday Night Live - 25 Years of Music - Vol. 4

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This fourth volume of the SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: 25 YEARS OF MUSIC series contains music videos and sketches from the early to mid-1990s. The musical performances include R.E.M., Sinead O'Connor, Madonna, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Nirvana, Paul McCartney, En Vogue, Counting Crows, Bruce Springsteen, Live and Blind Melon. I suppose the set is an important document for its footage of Sinead O'Connor tearing up a photo of Pope Jean Paul II after an a cappella rendition of Bob Marley's "War", although it stops before the crowd goes wild and O'Connor is pulled off stage. The mixing of this performance is a bit flat, and sometimes the vocalist is so low in the mix he's hard to hear. The music that plays in the DVD menu is also very loud (recent output in the "loudness wars"), making an enormous contrast with the quieter performances that will have you fumbling for your remote.

After the Ashlee Simpson lip-synching debacle it's hard to take SNL musical performances too seriously, but this DVD still has some value in giving us comedic sketches related to music. There's the Point-Counterpoint sketch between Mick Jagger (played by Mike Myers) and Keith Richards (amusingly played by a heavily disguised Mick Jagger). There's Phil Hartman's infamous "Sinatra Duets" sketch where the aging crooner demeans his young collaborators. "Juke Box Presents" is a nearly forgotten parody of white kids listening to gangsta rap music whose lyrics despise them. "Red Hooded Sweatshirt" is an Adam Sandler song. Finally, while I fondly remembered this sketch during the 1990s, the "The Chris Farley Show" sketch where a self-deprecating Farley rebukes himself for his bad interview with Paul McCartney now just seems sad in light of his death.

This is a great SNL Music-Volume. There's some funny short skits here and there. But seeing some of my favorite bands perform live was my reason for getting it. I love it.