Why Is ‘SNL’ Hellbent On Making Every Band Sound Like A Special-Needs Orchestra?

In our critical treatise of last October, “Coldplay’s ‘SNL’ Freak-Out: Easy-Listening Performance Art, Awful, Or Both?” we remarked upon not just Chris Martin’s spastic stage presence, but on the ungodly music itself:

A symphony of atonal bangs, clangs and twangs accompanied by Martin’s irritating coyote-hooting vocals, it was what we imagine a nursery school teacher’s nervous breakdown might sound like.

Let’s fast-forward now to this past weekend’s featured musical guest: TV on the Radio—a critically lauded, genre-transcending act that earns consistently glowing reviews, not just for their studio work, but for their live performances as well.

We hand the reins over to Idolator:

You would think, then, that the performance would be a triumph-but instead, it was a trainwreck…The brass obliterated everything else in its path. Worse, they seemed to be either out-of-tune or differently arranged, clashing painfully with the vocal line…[I]t turned the triumphant energy of the song into something that more closely resembled a performance by an experimental high school marching band.

We present Exhibit A, their SNL performance:

For comparison, the same song, as performed on The Colbert Report:

That’s quite a difference, even if you aren’t familiar with the recorded track. Idolator writes:

I’m no sound nerd, but you can tell that the Colbert track was actually mixed to sound like a band, not a collection of errant noises that happen to appear in a room together.

We’re now thinking back to other recent SNL performances—this Usher one comes to mind—and have concluded that there is a severe sound mixing problem going on in Studio 8-H. Perhaps jig-dancin’, lip-syncin’ Ashlee v.1.0 had the right idea all along.

• Ayo Blogger Idiots… You Know “Saturday Night Live” Is Screwing With You, Right? [Idolator]