SNL's 51st season was bound to feel transitional: It followed the round-numbered spectacle of Season 50, which produced many accompanying specials and celebrations, and it accompanied a fair bit of cast turnover — including Bowen Yang, who departed with a song midway through the season, accompanied by Cher and Ariana Grande.
But, in terms of official musical guests, the lineup was as eventful as ever, as bookers mixed contemporary pop, rock and hip-hop chart-toppers (Sabrina Carpenter, Harry Styles, Noah Kahan, A$AP Rocky, Sombr, Olivia Dean, Olivia Rodrigo), heavily promoted up-and-comers (Role Model, Dijon, Geese) and elder legends (Paul McCartney, Cher).
Ranking any given SNL season's music is always a fool's errand, a fact reflected in the byline at the top of this page. As always, many factors can affect where a performance ranks — SNL's sound mixes were improved this season, but they're always a crapshoot — and this season's crop felt particularly tricky to evaluate because nothing sank all the way into train-wreck territory. Would it have killed them to, say, bring back DJ Khaled to yell for a while, or maybe resuscitate Kanye West's stint as a rapping soda bottle? What's Ashlee Simpson up to these days?
Regardless, for the ninth consecutive year (here's 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018), it's time to run down the great, the good and the mediocre from SNL's 51st season. As always, we've included links for the videos that are still streaming on YouTube, but if you're all about rigorous cross-checking, each of these sets is still streaming on Peacock.
20. Role Model, "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out" and "Some Protector" (10/11/25)
Singer-songwriter Tucker Pillsbury (a.k.a. Role Model) injects his sturdy, genre-fluid folk-pop songs with traces of country and even hip-hop, and executes the whole package with big, bold, theater-kid energy. That extended to his SNL debut, where he opened his hit "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out" from a seated position in a hayloft. From there, he spent the song bounding around smiling, clad in pants sparkly enough to summon Benson Boone.
The guest who cameoed instead was Charli xcx, who showed up to strut across the stage, flip her hair and stay silent. But, for all the gameness and bluster, neither "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out" nor "Some Protector" could transcend Role Model's ragged, pitchy vocals, though he at least salvaged the power notes at the end of an otherwise-static recitation of "Some Protector." Chalk it up to nerves, but he just didn't sound ready for a stage so unforgiving.
19. Cher, "DJ Play a Christmas Song" and "Run Rudolph Run" (12/20/25)
OK, let's get one thing out of the way upfront: Yes, Cher was clearly lip-syncing here, particularly during her effects-laden 2023 chart hit "DJ Play a Christmas Song." At least Cher and her people knew to surround her with lots of pomp and flash throughout both songs. And, of course, Cher is (1) a legend, and (2) 79 years old, which gives her a bit more leeway than viewers might grant to a pop singer a quarter her age.
But… yeah, this was always going to be a trifle, given the source material, the ragged spirit of many pre-Christmas SNL episodes, and the karaoke of it all. "Run Rudolph Run" gave the band space to shine — particularly The Roots' Captain Kirk Douglas, who joined her on guitar — and the energy stayed agreeably buoyant throughout. Given these performances' proximity to Christmas, it's fair enough to grade Cher on a curve, and to forgive the audience for clapping along so arrhythmically.
18. Lily Allen, "Sleepwalking" and "Madeline" (12/13/25)
Nearly 19 years passed between Lily Allen's SNL debut and her return to the show following the release of her 2025 comeback album West End Girl, built around the infidelity that led to the end of her marriage. Its achingly personal songs contributed to the intimacy of these reflective, melancholy performances, both of which were set in or around bedrooms.
Unfortunately, Allen's vocal style — conversational, muted, prone to speak-singing — just didn't translate on TV, rendering her intricate songwriting difficult to discern in a washed-out mix. (Allen seemed nervous, too, which made sense given the subject matter and a long hiatus from touring.)
The visuals were striking enough, particularly when "Madeline" re-created an intimate conversation with a shadowy figure behind a curtain who turned out to be Dakota Johnson. But Allen would have been well-served swapping out at least one of these songs for a West End Girl track with a bit more energy.
17. Dijon, "Higher!" and "Another Baby!" (12/6/25)
As a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Dijon has been a leading light in the world of alternative R&B. Known for his collaborations with Mk.gee and Bon Iver — as well as Justin Bieber, whose album SWAG bears many of his sonic fingerprints — Dijon specializes in strange deconstructions wherein fragments of gospel, soul and Prince-esque funk are chopped up and reconstituted.
It's a strange and heady concoction, and it doesn't lend itself easily to three- to four-minute bites on the SNL stage. Dijon compensated by filling the unadorned space with a small army of collaborators — including Nick Hakim, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and former Dirty Projectors standout Amber Coffman — but the effect felt discordant, haphazardly mixed and undercooked, like jam sessions that hadn't quite formed into songs.
16. Paul McCartney, "Days We Left Behind," "Band on the Run" and "Coming Up" (5/16/26)
If we're giving Cher a mostly free pass for lip-syncing on SNL, then we're going to have to grant a boost to the great Paul McCartney, whose voice has frayed with age without losing its emotional heft. As the show's season-ending musical guest, McCartney leaned into his voice's wear and tear in "Days We Left Behind," the kind of melancholy reflection that hits harder at 83. (Though he sings it in a much higher register, the song feels aligned with some of Johnny Cash's late-career work.)
From there, it was on to not one but two victory laps: McCartney's rendition of the Wings hit "Band on the Run" coasted on the singer's more-than-ample supply of goodwill, while "Coming Up" — the 1980 song he performed over the show's closing credits — let him play a bit looser. In that spirit, host Will Ferrell even joined the song late, which allowed him to once again occupy the same frame as his doppelgänger, drummer Chad Smith. It's always good to have reminders that they're not the same person.
15. Cardi B, "Bodega Baddie (feat. El Prodigio)" and "ErrTime" (1/31/26)
Cardi B isn't one to skimp on stage production, and she certainly wasn't going to hold back as the musical guest on SNL's 1,000th episode. "Bodega Baddie" found her dancing and twirling at center stage as the Dominican accordionist El Prodigio led a lively and percussive band behind her, while "ErrTime" surrounded her with six lithe, athletic dancers. Both performances were fine pieces of stagecraft: energetic, flashy, always in motion.
Unfortunately, the songs themselves barely registered. The two-minute-long "Bodega Baddie" was mostly intro and outro; Cardi B herself rapped a couple of verses in roughly a minute, backed by a generous vocal track. That vocal track made ample contributions to "ErrTime," as well, but at least Cardi B kept the audience's eyes on her throughout. Neither song was catchy enough to transcend the spectacle, but … hey, a spectacle!
14. Olivia Dean, "Man I Need" and "Let Alone the One You Love" (11/15/25)
"Man I Need," Olivia Dean's breakthrough single, could and would have been a hit in 1976, 1986, 1996, 2006 or 2016, and at any point since. That eras-spanning appeal suggests something universal in "Man I Need," but it also speaks to the way the song's edges have been sanded down to create something uncanny and frictionless. It's impeccably crafted, and on SNL it was impeccably staged, right down to the placement of an offscreen fan to keep Dean's hair in motion.
Dean performed "Man I Need" with smiley, agreeable verve, while "Let Alone the One You Love" showcased her more somber, downcast side. And, once again, the latter performance felt notable mostly for its impeccability: the vocal well-balanced and note-perfect, the band stately and muted, the dress billowing dramatically. Even the usually unforgiving sound mix cooperated every step of the way. The only fault to be found came, counterintuitively, in the sheer faultlessness of it all. What does it say about the AI age that one of its biggest breakout stars has found a way to bury her humanity?
13. Harry Styles, "Dance No More" and "Coming Up Roses" (3/14/26)
Harry Styles knows his way around SNL: He's a six-time musical guest (counting three stints as a member of One Direction), the last two of which found him pulling double duty as host. For his latest appearance, following the release of Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally., he showcased the two modes that pop up on the album most frequently: EDM-friendly ringleader and swoony balladeer.
"Dance No More" found Styles shuffling amiably at the center of a well-populated, dutifully swaying band, while "Coming Up Roses" placed the singer at a piano alongside a robust string section. Neither required feats of athleticism, physically or vocally, but that's not what Styles' latest album is about anyway; instead, it's about finding your place within the din of communal spaces like dance floors. On that level, these performances worked as intended.
12. Mumford & Sons, "Rubber Band Man (feat. Hozier)" and "Here (feat. Sierra Ferrell)" (2/28/26)
Mumford & Sons' stomp-and-clap folk-rock hoedowns fell out of mainstream commercial favor shortly after the band's Grammy win for album of the year in 2013. But SNL never quit Mumford & Sons, booking the group in 2015 and 2018; if it weren't for a long gap between albums, it surely wouldn't have taken seven-plus years (not counting a quick Marcus Mumford cameo in 2021) for these guys to return to the show.
And, honestly, why the heck not? Mumford and his assorted sons (who included producer Aaron Dessner here) have always been masters of rousing, rustic, roots-adjacent anthems that feel engineered to move stadium-sized crowds, and it turns out that they're more than capable of conquering the boxier confines of Studio 8H, as well. It helped, for the band's return to the SNL stage, that they brought a pair of worthy ringers in Hozier (for "Rubber Band Man") and Sierra Ferrell (for "Here"), given that the former was a headlining musical guest a season earlier and the latter is likely to get the same treatment soon enough.
This wasn't the best stomp-and-clap-adjacent performance of the season — that'd belong to Noah Kahan, as discussed below — but both songs were lively enough to keep viewers awake through the closing credits. That's not nothing.
11. Anitta, "Choka Choka" and "Várias quejas" (4/11/26)
Anitta is one of Brazil's biggest stars, and her crossover to the U.S. pop scene — which included a belated nomination for 2023's best new artist Grammy — continued with her first-ever stint on SNL. And if you want to know how she's broken through so effectively, well… let's just say you don't have to know Anitta's work to get "Choka Choka" stuck in your head for a good, long time.
The studio version of "Choka Choka" features a guest turn from Shakira. Anitta performed it Shakiraless on SNL, with many of the song's vocals relegated to a backing track as Anitta led a group of lingerie-clad dancers. For "Várias quejas," she shimmied softly — and solo — at center stage, letting her luminous vocals do most of the work for her. In all, the staging felt a little sterile, but the star's charisma was unmistakable.
10. Sombr, "12 to 12" and "Back to Friends" (11/8/25)
It kinda goes without saying that this was Sombr's SNL debut, given that the 20-year-old TikTok favorite was born after Kenan Thompson joined the show's cast. But unlike, say, fellow riser Role Model, the artist born Shane Michael Boose met the moment, infusing "12 to 12" with lithe swagger, lots of forceful kicks and a falsetto that rarely faltered.
At first, Sombr's take on "Back to Friends" seemed as if it would drain the I Barely Know Her hit of its urgency, as he opened the song by reconfiguring it as a downcast piano dirge. But Sombr jumped to his feet soon enough, let the song's energy build and even carried off an Eddie Vedder-esque climb to — or at least toward — the Studio 8H rafters.
Neither performance did much to transform or transcend the studio's confines; these were just glossy rock and roll jams, set apart by a striking and committed frontman. But in all his lanky glory, Sombr lived up to the considerable task he'd faced.
9. Doja Cat, "Aaahh Men!" and "Gorgeous" (10/4/25)
SNL kicked off its 51st season with Bad Bunny as host. But he ceded musical-guest privileges to rapper and singer Doja Cat, since he'd performed songs from DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS the previous season anyway.
Fortunately, Doja Cat made the most of her SNL debut, as her live-wire presence fed a jolt of electricity through two songs that aren't especially hook-forward. In the spiky, new-wave-inflected rap-pop song "Aaahh Men!," that meant spitting rapid-fire bars in between a fit of dramatic laughter and a fit of dramatic coughing. "Gorgeous" felt more subdued, as she stayed seated at the center of a gigantic rose.
Both performances relegated Doja Cat's band to an afterthought, both visually and sonically. But her stage presence was enough to carry the night.
8. Geese, "Au Pays du Cocaine" and "Trinidad" (1/24/26)
The arty, polarizing indie-rock band Geese launched a thousand think pieces in 2025, so it was only natural that SNL would glom onto that conversation. Far from settling the matter either way, the band's two songs provided ammunition for devotees and detractors alike. At times, Geese conjured memories of mid-'00s blog bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and not just with the "Where did all this adulation come from?" discourse; in "Au Pays du Cocaine," singer Cameron Winter even sounded eerily like Zach Condon of Beirut.
Still, the band's strange, wiry energy translated beautifully — and ultimately timelessly — on the SNL stage, especially in the chaotic, strobe-lit "Trinidad." There, the band's inscrutability paired well with aggression, thanks in part to a mix that foregrounded Winter's vocals without relegating the band to background noise. In the battle of "saviors of rock and roll" vs. "an overhyped psyop," here's to casting a lone, defiant vote for: "Hey, pretty good!"
7. Jack White, "Derecho Demonico" and "G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs" (4/4/26)
Jack White has become one of SNL's "break glass in case of emergency" musical guests, no matter how you define emergency. The show has to disinvite Morgan Wallen for failing to follow COVID protocols? Get Jack White to come in and crush it. Jack Black is joining The Five-Timers' Club as a host and they want to do a thing where Jack Black and Jack White (a five-timer in his own right, not even counting his stint in The White Stripes) share top billing? Get White to come back and perform two brand-new songs that hadn't even appeared on an album.
Surely, most fans watching Black on SNL hadn't heard "Derecho Demonico" or "G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs" by the time he showed up to perform them live, though he did satisfy hunger for a classic when he played a bit of "Seven Nation Army" during Black's opening monologue. But the two new tracks sounded plenty familiar in their own right, with their many bluesy, solo-filled echoes of older tracks like "Ball and Biscuit" and "Lazaretto."
These performances may not have raised White's game beyond what he'd shown on the SNL stage already. But "get Jack White to come back and shred some more" is never a bad game plan.
6. Brandi Carlile, "Church & State" and "Human" (11/1/25)
Brandi Carlile has now performed as SNL's musical guest four times — three times solo, once alongside Elton John — and there's no mystery why: She's got a booming, stellar voice, and she rarely goes far without her ace backing band, which now includes the members of SistaStrings. Carlile has been one of rock and folk and country's ringers for more than two decades now, and when SNL bookers need a win, they know she'll give them one.
Just seven months after Carlile played Studio 8H with John, she returned armed with two songs from 2025's Returning to Myself: the nervy protest anthem "Church & State" and the reflective slow-builder "Human." Though the sound mix didn't showcase Carlile's strengths in the early moments of "Human," it's hard to find fault in either performance.
5. A$AP Rocky, "Punk Rocky" and "Don't Be Dumb/Trip Baby"/"Helicopter" (1/17/26)
A$AP Rocky's chart-topping album Don't Be Dumb was a comeback eight years in the making — a sprawling, unpredictable burst of clashing ideas. The same can be said of his SNL debut, which compressed theater, fashion and action into a single performance of "Punk Rocky," which featured Danny Elfman on drums and Thundercat on bass. Every moment of the song came bundled with something to see, from the row of curlers down the center of A$AP Rocky's head to synchronized dancing to flying trash to a wild fight scene that culminated in our star getting punched through the back wall of the stage. (For purposes of context and comparison, the song's video is even wilder.)
To open "Don't Be Dumb/Trip Baby," A$AP Rocky returned to the same trash-strewn set, singing into a lectern before shifting to rap for the towel-swirling mayhem of "Helicopter." If that seems like a lot to digest, well, that's a feature, not a bug: Give the man credit for taking such a big, idiosyncratic swing, especially with songs as catchy and frenetic as these.
4. Gorillaz, "Clint Eastwood (feat. Del The Funky Homosapien)" and "The Moon Cave (feat. Anoushka Shankar, Asha Puthli & Black Thought)" (3/7/26)
Gorillaz had never performed on SNL before this set, so it was a nice touch that Damon Albarn's group led with its debut single from all the way back in 2001. "Clint Eastwood," featuring rapper Del The Funky Homosapien, remains untouchable a quarter-century later, and it's always a pleasure to get reacquainted with the dynamic and charismatic Del. With Gorillaz' cartoon alter egos projected on the back wall — that visual iconography is central to the group's enduring appeal — "Clint Eastwood" was a lovely way to kick off a set meant to promote a new Gorillaz album, titled The Mountain.
The Mountain got its moment in "The Moon Cave," which packed the TV screen with projected animation, a huge band, a choir and three guest stars: rapper Black Thought of The Roots, Anoushka Shankar on sitar and 81-year-old Indian legend Asha Puthli. With that many sonic mouths to feed, the whole thing inevitably teetered on the brink of a shambles, with Puthli mostly disappearing in the mushy mix. Still, once Black Thought's commanding verse kicked in, all was forgiven.
All in all, a welcome nostalgia trip, a visual feast and, most of all, a true event — more than enough to justify the 25-year wait.
3. Olivia Rodrigo, "drop dead" and "begged" (5/2/26)
Olivia Rodrigo is just 23 and she's already been SNL's headlining musical guest three times — once for each album in her catalog. And, in a testament to her short lifetime of preparation for the spotlight, she's 3-for-3 in smashing the gig out of the park.
Performing "drop dead" and "begged" in an early promotion for the June release of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Rodrigo and her team gave each song an appropriate stage setting. For the effervescent "drop dead," that meant situating O-Rod and her band in an underground lair, with Rodrigo's headstone overhead. For the somber "begged," it meant giving her the "lonely woman sulking on a swing" treatment, as her background singers (including Weyes Blood!) cooed softly behind her.
Taken together, the two songs displayed considerable range, as the former found Rodrigo pogoing in time with copious cymbal-crashes and the latter centered on her plaintive, supple vocal. Pretty impressive, given that the singer was working a double-shift as musical guest and host.
2. Noah Kahan, "The Great Divide" and "Doors" (5/9/26)
Somewhere along the way, Noah Kahan raised his game from straightforwardly anthemic folk-rock — a kind of stomp-and-clap Bon Iver — to become one of rock and roll's foremost Northern Men of Feelings. His new album, the epic chart-topper The Great Divide, does a brilliant job unpacking past friendships and broken relationships, with an unflinching emphasis on his own role in how things went sideways. And, as always, he dispenses those insights with a mastery of the anthemic, accompanied by a stellar band.
For his latest stop on SNL, Kahan invested both "The Great Divide" and "Doors" with second-encore energy: wild-eyed, sweat-flinging, hooky, booming. The visuals worked, too, particularly in "The Great Divide," which was set in a simulacrum of a living room — complete with the illusion that the audience was peering in through the front window. These songs are going to absolutely crush it in a stadium setting, as the band gets even more time and room to sprawl out. But in the meantime, they were fantastic on the SNL stage, too.
1. Sabrina Carpenter, "Manchild" and "Nobody's Son" (10/18/25)
Two seasons ago, these rankings damned Sabrina Carpenter with faint praise, calling her "fun" and "agreeable" while placing her "Espresso"-led performance as the 15th-best of SNL's 2023-24 season. Well, cue the Shaq meme, because Carpenter's game would quickly prove far more versatile, theatrical, hooky and hilarious than (ahem) some casual observers might have expected.
Carpenter's return to SNL as both musical guest and host — not a surprise, given her background as a comic actor — was headlined by her irresistible hit "Manchild." Dancing around a mock-bedroom in her underwear, singing into a mic configured to resemble a hairbrush and dispensing every punchline with panache, she sold the song as a piece of stellar, sight-gag-rich musical theater.
"Nobody's Son" proved a bit less eventful: The song's got a killer hook, and the performance was livened up with a bit of martial-arts mishegoss, but it wasn't as much of a standout — particularly given the boomy, distant sound mix. Still, Carpenter had already more than proven herself by that point. Invite her back every season, please.
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