Saturday Night Live has hosted quite a few incredible musical performances through the years. Spanning just about every genre you can think of, many musicians have graced the stage and made pop culture memories for decades. However, some of those memories aren’t exactly… good. Let’s take a look at five of the most unforgettable and disruptive Saturday Night Live performances ever!
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1. Sinead O’Connor, 1992
This is probably the most legendary and controversial Saturday Night Live performance ever. Irish singer Sinead O’Connor took to the stage in 1992 for a rendition of Bob Marley’s song “War”. As she did so, she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II while singing the lyrics “We have confidence in good over evil.”
The stunt was a protest against the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals that had begun circulating through Ireland at the time, and the world shortly after. O’Connor was right in her act, but the world wasn’t ready to hear her. NBC received hundreds of angry calls about the performance.
2. Kanye West, 2018
Saturday Night Live performances tend to get political and wild, but this particular episode from 2018 was truly bizarre. Kanye West and Lil Pump performed in water bottle costumes during that episode, and that wasn’t even the wildest part of the episode as a whole.
Kanye wore a particular red hat during his skit, declared his allegiance to Donald Trump in an unaired speech, and was dragged through the mud by Pete Davidson.
3. Fear, 1981
SNL got punk in 1981 with a wild, destructive performance by punk band Fear. The showrunners really wanted Jim Belushi to appear on the show, and he agreed to make an appearance on the condition that Fear perform as the musical guest on the Halloween episode.
And perform they did; it was an insane set. A number of punk icons, from Ian MacKaye to Tesco Vee moshed on stage as Fear performed. Equipment was damaged, a producer got hit with a pumpkin, and someone audibly screamed “f*** New York” into the microphone. The band was banned shortly after.
4. Cypress Hill, 1993
Cypress Hill delivered an excellent performance on SNL in 1993. However, they were banned shortly after. We get why. The band’s DJ Muggs brazenly lit a joint on stage before yelling “Yo New York City, they said I couldn’t light my joint, you know what I’m saying? Well, we ain’t going out like that!”
According to fellow member Sen Dog, Muggs acted of his own volition and even surprised his fellow band members.
5. Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1992
Saturday Night Live performances often get messy, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ set in 1992 was as messy as it gets. Before the performance, John Frusciante got into a fight with a crew member and was allegedly angry about Madonna ignoring him on set. He basically sabotaged the set by intentionally performing the wrong notes.
Anthony Kiedis later said that he “felt like [he] was getting stabbed in the back and hung out to dry in front of all of America while this guy was off in a corner in the shadow, playing some dissonant out-of-tune experiment.”
Photo by Alan Singer/NBCU Photo Bank
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