For artists at the “Are the for real?” stage of their career, “Saturday Night Live” is one of the great proving grounds — over the decades we’ve seen Nirvana, Pink and Kendrick Lamar knock it out o…
” is one of the great proving grounds — over the decades we’ve seen Nirvana, Pink and Kendrick Lamar knock it out of the park and Ashlee Simpson and Lana Del Rey faceplant in spectacular fashion, to name five top-of-head examples. Without setting too high a standard, it is safe to say that fast-rising 18-year-old singer-actor, who already has one of the biggest hits of the year with the teen-heartbreak anthem“Drivers License,” knocked her two-song performance out of the park on Saturday night.
Rodrigo’s solo career didn’t even begin in earnest until “Drivers License” was released in January, but after three seasons portraying a teen musician on Disney’s “Bizaardvarks” and one on the network’s catchily titled “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” it’s a role she’s essentially been in deep training for — complete with a recentwith a costar — since she was 12 or 13.
That second performance even had a narrative: During the brief between-commercial preview that precedes all “SNL” musical performances, she gave the camera a big smile followed by a nervous, butterflies-in-the-stomach grimace — and after she’d nailed it , instead of holding a smile or pose while the audience cheered like most performers do, she smiled quickly at the camera and then ran and hugged her smiling bass player until the show cut to an ad. It’s hard not to like her.
TV performances are a major but untrustworthy predictor of an artist’s longevity or “real”-ness — the ability to crush two songs for the cameras does not mean they’ve got a career or even a strong concert set. Add to that, Rodrigo performed two-thirds of her solo catalog on Saturday night.