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Saturday Night Live’s skit about the travails recently faced by Broadway not only made this former drama club member chuckle multiple times (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a good “Rent was kind of annoying” joke), it featured Taylor Swift in a cameo as Annie, which, you have to be honest, seems kinda perfectly matched to her endlessly cheery persona, if not to her vocal range. After the jump, Swift’s two straight musical performances from the episode.
“Love Story”
“Forever & Always”
Forever & Always [YouTube]
Swift has a very limited vocal range, but she’s a born performer. Kinda like Kanye, come to think of it…
She’s so goddamn likeable.
@Chris Molanphy: I know absolutely nothing about her songs, but I do think she deserved to sound better on that stage. The “Annie” cameo was genius, though.
@Varina: Agreed. Usually I would say something about how, hey, she’s a pop singer — who cares about her range — it’s about performance, blah blah blah. BUT the sound was so bad, I felt like I was watching a cringe-worthy battle of the bands in my high school’s cafetorium or something. Then again, I feel like SNL has made well, every band sound/look like that in the past few years.
Anyway, the main thing I wanted to say here is that I’m so totally crushed out on every member of her backing band — have been for like, months!
I’ve been pushing Taylor to skeptical friends for a year now (I think “Fearless” was the best pop album to come out in ‘08). I was hoping her SNL appearance would finally bring them over. Too bad her performance was the worst I’ve seen on the show in years. No mix at all — drums sounded like blocks of wood, no definition to other instruments, and yeah, Taylor’s voice was not up for it.
And could her bass player copped any more douchebag moves? Christ, did he get lost on his way back from a Korn gig?
Yeah. those songs needed four guitars. maybe they should have had that annoying lord of the dance fiddler lady play banjo, but not just banjo, totally hot american idol dancing with the stars dance moves banjo. with sparkles. yeah. then it would have been totally awesome.
As much as I do like Swift’s public persona (she dared strike back at the Jonas Brother that dumped her), her SNL performance is now the second time I’ve heard her sound less-than-fresh in performance.
She really had a tough time on the Grammy Nominations show a couple of months ago. I mean, she’s not terrible, but her voice is just so thin that putting it on front-street during a chestnut like “I’m Sorry” really amplified that fact:
Still, she’s young enough that some experience and vocal training could help a lot.
@the rich girls are weeping: I’m definitely cool with her acoustic guitarist just chilling in the background–a dead-ringer for Kenneth from “30 Rock”!
Country band members tend to have inferiority complexes. They always want to let you know that they COULD be in a rock band if they wanted to. Miranda Lambert’s bass player has a mohawk, for pity’s sake.
All-around doucheiest (sp? ha!) band members, EVER. Esp the bass player. And the guitar player on the right. And… well, you get the point.