A couple weekends ago, Saturday Night Live gave a country musician the chance to host the show for the first time since Taylor Swift headlined in 2009. While the episode didn’t get the greatest ratings, it allowed Blake Shelton to get country music back onto an important musical stage. In an era where country music is put on the back burner to feature artists whose musical tours are more of a production than a performance, Blake Shelton may have opened the door for country to be featured on television again.
After realizing I hadn’t heard country music on SNL in recent memory, I stumbled upon a CMT timeline of country hosts and performers since the show’s inception in 1975. In the earlier years of Saturday Night Live, country artists were featured in higher frequency. In the year 1982, both Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels Band performed on SNL within weeks of each other. Willie Nelson has been featured as both a musical guest and a host/participant. All three of these artists drew attention to country music through televised media, whether they were in a skit mocking country music or performing their songs to a sold-out crowd. However, only two artists performed on SNL in the entire decade of the 90s. So my question is, what happened?
The 90s might be a musical decade highlighted by the rise of stars like Britney Spears and *NSYNC, but many great country groups enjoyed sound careers during this time. Even since the rise of the boyband, Justin Timberlake has been featured on SNL multiple times. Trisha Yearwood’s “She’s In Love With The Boy” is a song I remember hearing as a kid, before I even got into country music. Alabama received multi-platinum success on several albums from the 80s through the 00s, but they were never a host or performance feature on the sketch-comedy show.
While country music is less popular than Top-40 style pop, the artists are frequently commended for their fan interaction and genuine persona in an industry in which these traits are few and far between. Wouldn’t a people-pleaser be a great choice for the host of SNL? Someone who could work well with others in a skit and is also able to give a great live performance at the end? I’d be curious to see what the producers of SNL have to say about their continued decisions of a lack of country music presence.
The Washington Post released an article on January 24, 2015 called, “How Blake Shelton replaced Taylor Swift as the face of country music.” This article was prompted after Blake Shelton hosted “Saturday Night Live.” The article goes on to explain that Blake Shelton “is the first country singer to host the famed late-night sketch show since Taylor Swift, who took the stage in November 2009, way back when she was decidedly still a country star.”
The episode’s rendition of the Bachelor, “Farm Hunk”, was hilarious as the female contestants tried to “steal him [Shelton] away for a sec”. This skit gave the audience some good laughs even though the majority of the comedic lines came from the strong female cast. Still, even with a strong cast by your side the typically hilarious “Family Feud” skit was not as funny as expected from this reoccurring skit. “Family Feud” contestants were comprised of the coaches from the Voice and the judges from American Idol. Once again, Kate McKinnon stole the spotlight with an impersonation of Keith Urban. Blake, playing himself, had a few good lines mentioning his beautiful and talented wife, Miranda Lambert.