8 Terrible SNL Episodes Hosted By Musicians (That Were Still Better Than Blake Shelton)

By Vivian Kane | Lists | January 25, 2015 |

By Vivian Kane | Lists | January 25, 2015 |

There have been some musicians who have absolutely killed as Saturday Night Live hosts. Paul Simon and Justin Timberlake spring to mind. Drake surprised everyone last year when he hosted. But these are rare exceptions. A lot of musicians have tried their hand at hosting and failed miserably. Sometimes spectacularly. Are these 8 worse than Blake Shelton was this weekend? Possibly. When you reach a certain level of suckage it can get hard to rank accurately. It’s all just awful.

Frank Zappa (1978)
Zappa wasn’t so great at saying words, doing things, or not laughing. In fact, his appearance was so terrible, he was banned from the show.

Do yourself a favor and watch a longer clip, including a truly terrible Coneheads sketch here.

M.C. Hammer
Well, you’ve got the suit. You’ve got a wind machine. There’s Michael Jackson, and a lot of talking about himself in the third person. How all of that didn’t equal the best monologue ever is beyond me.

Britney Spears (2000)
No surprise, the show was mostly about her chestal region.

Katy Perry (2011)
The writers tried to work around Katy’s lack of acting ability: they stuck her at the end and made the whole think about singing. Still didn’t make it work.

(Okay, fine, Andy Samberg’s Spin Doctors made me laugh. Are you happy now?)

Justin Bieber (2013)
The SNL writers were not able to make Justin Bieber a decent actor. But they were able to make better use of him than Shelton this weekend. Take this special sexy Valentine’s message. It’s 100% less terrible than anything from this weekend’s episode.

Adam Levine (2013)
Levin’e monologue was straight-up awful. Not even a Jerry Seinfeld cameo could save it, and it was already so bad that not even a Cameron Diaz cameo could ruin it.

Johnny Cash (1982)
This sketch is based around how long it takes to sing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. So it’s built right into the joke that we will inevitably get tired of it.

Madonna (1985)
This sketch from back when Madonna hosted SNL is possibly one of the worst things to ever be on TV. “Pinklisting” is like McCarthy era blacklisting, but with 6 and a half minutes of gay stereotypes thrown in.