Saturday Night Live has hosted quite a few amazing acts through the years, but there was nothing quite like the 1990s era. These three acts are some of the most impressive (and controversial) bands and musicians to hit that famed stage at the end of the 20th century. Let’s take a walk through history, shall we?
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1. Cypress Hill
This famed California hip-hop outfit made the news back in 1993 for their performance on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, they didn’t make headlines for their stellar rendition of “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That”. Rather, the group found themselves in hot water after DJ Muggs whipped out a joint and smoked it, live in front of the audience, God, your mother probably, and a whole host of conservative-leaning viewers.
It was such a provocative moment on the show, and Cypress Hill ended up getting banned for the act. Sen Dog said that the producers told them they could do anything they wanted on stage, except for lighting up a fat one. Naturally, DJ Muggs wanted to stick it to the man by doing exactly that.
2. Nirvana
When Nirvana performed on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s, nobody knew what to expect from the grunge icons. However, the result was an amazing thing to behold.
Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl hit the SNL stage in 1992 to perform a noisy, intense rendition of their songs “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Territorial Pissings”. And in good ol’ Nirvana fashion, they ended their set by destroying their instruments on live television. That wasn’t what made people angry, though. What made some viewers angry was the band’s choice to give each other smooches during the episode’s closing segment. Legends.
3. Sinéad O’Connor
This wouldn’t be a list of legendary Saturday Night Live performances from the 1990s without mentioning Sinéad O’Connor’s bold on-stage protest of the Catholic Church in 1992. While performing a rendition of the song “War”, O’Connor held up a photo of then-pope John Paul II, and ripped the photo in half as she sang the word “evil.”
It was an incredibly controversial decision that was made without the producers’ knowledge. O’Connor got a lot of flack for it, but she wasn’t particularly bothered. She reasserted that she was an activist and protest singer before a pop musician, and went on with her life.
Photo by Gerry Goodstein/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
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