Lifestyle
'SNL' just wrapped its 49th season: It's time to cruelly rank its musical guests
Bad Bunny performs on SNL on Oct. 21, 2023.
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Bad Bunny performs on SNL on Oct. 21, 2023.
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Saturday Night Live‘s 49th season was a typically mixed bag, as the show continued to adjust to cast departures, the relentless pace of current events and the usual constraints and limitations of live TV. At least the 2023-’24 season wasn’t truncated by outside factors, be they COVID-19 or last year’s Writers Guild of America strike.
Season 49 also featured an array of musical guests that included massive stars and up-and-comers alike — each of whom is about to get ranked with bloodless scientific precision, in ascending order of quality, based in part on their ability to withstand Studio 8H’s notoriously unforgiving sound mixes. This is our seventh straight year doing this (here’s 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018), so consider this ranking to be not so much one man’s subjective opinion as incontrovertible truth.
That said, we’ve linked to every performance that’s still (legally) posted on YouTube, and every one of these sets is available for streaming via Peacock in case you wish to double-check my work. You know, for science.
20. Ice Spice, “In Ha Mood” and “Pretty Girl (feat. Rema)” (10/14/23)
Ice Spice and Rema.
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Ice Spice and Rema.
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Ice Spice has been a welcome presence on countless pop singles in the past few years, but her laid-back style — low in the mix, with little wasted motion — doesn’t lend itself to onstage dynamism. Aside from a bit of half-speed hip-swiveling, her debut as an SNL headliner amounted to little more than a vibe: coy, lightly suggestive, vaguely indifferent.
She was also extremely ill-served by a muddy sound mix — as well as rote, thudding backing tracks — that threatened to drown her out completely. And that was before Ice Spice returned for “Pretty Girl,” in which guest Rema (due for his own SNL headlining spot, but also mixed way too quietly here) showed up to assume the lion’s share of vocal duties. Ice Spice has charisma, star power and famous friends — Taylor Swift even popped up to introduce her the second time around — but these sluggish two-minute performances felt like afterthoughts even as they were happening.
19. Jennifer Lopez, “Can’t Get Enough (feat. Latto & Redman)” and “This Is Me… Now” (2/3/24)
Jennifer Lopez.
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Jennifer Lopez.
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These two performances of songs from Jennifer Lopez’s weird, misbegotten concept album This Is Me… Now presented two sides of the same lavish spectacle. “Can’t Get Enough” fed us the chaotic side, complete with guest raps from Latto and Redman, plus lots of Lopez kicking at the camera as the lights behind her flickered and raged. The gloopy title track, on the other hand, fed us a cloying diet of gigantic roses and clouds of pink smoke, as portions of Lopez’s nude form peeked out from behind a flower sculpture that resembled nothing if not a bulging heap of meringue.
Neither song ranked among Lopez’s choicest cuts to begin with, but at least “Can’t Get Enough” had energy to lean on. “This Is Me… Now,” on the other hand, called for absolute stillness, and not just due to the considerable risk of wardrobe malfunction; consequently, all the pressure landed on Lopez to oversell the vocal. The result felt deadly dull and old-fashioned — a would-be showstopper that landed with a big wet plop.
18. Kacey Musgraves, “Deeper Well” and “Too Good to Be True” (3/2/24)
Kacey Musgraves.
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Kacey Musgraves.
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In this year of pop-cultural grievance, Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well hits like a welcome antidote: a softly rendered self-help reflection on ways to recover, repair and otherwise emerge from destructive patterns. It’s not, however, the stuff of onstage rambunctiousness.
So while Musgraves returned to SNL accompanied by a fully-stocked band, it was still — as in the late-night performances that accompanied her moodily undercooked 2021 album star-crossed — hard to get sucked into these motion-resistant performances. Trading the tastefully concealed nudity of her last SNL set for a folksier quilted bathrobe, the singer did a nice job conveying the hard-earned wisdom of “Deeper Well.” But “Too Good to Be True” barely registered on a disappointingly low-energy night.
17. Reneé Rapp, “Snow Angel” and “Not My Fault (feat. Megan Thee Stallion)” (1/20/24)
Renée Rapp, accompanied by Megan Thee Stallion.
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Renée Rapp, accompanied by Megan Thee Stallion.
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Not just anyone gets to be a headlining musical guest on SNL: Those spots are almost exclusively reserved for major stars in pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock, Latin music and country. But exceptions can be made for lesser-known performers who just happen to star in new films produced by SNL‘s Lorne Michaels. Michaels really wanted you to see the film adaptation of the musical adaptation of the 2004 film Mean Girls, so he booked star Reneé Rapp to perform a pair of songs: one from Rapp’s 2023 album Snow Angel and one from Mean Girls‘ closing credits.
Rapp herself does fine, but the sound mix makes an absolute hash of her vocals; for all its musical-theater staging, it’s hard to make out more than a few words of “Snow Angel.” “Not My Fault” fares a bit better, in part due to the presence of A-list ringer Megan Thee Stallion, who gamely turns up for a guest verse. Still, just four months removed from this performance, it already invites the question, “Why was this on SNL again?” Synergy, baby!
16. 21 Savage, “redrum” and “should’ve wore a bonnet (feat. Brent Faiyaz)”https://www.npr.org/”prove it (feat. Summer Walker)” (2/24/24)
21 Savage.
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21 Savage.
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21 Savage gets points for working a fair bit of collaboration into his performances: “redrum” placed him in the middle of a smokily lit scene populated by a violinist, two singers handling the hook and two black-clad ballerinas, while his medley of “should’ve wore a bonnet” and “prove it” brought in vocal ringers Brent Faiyaz and Summer Walker, respectively.
The problem is that Savage himself rarely seemed invested in being there. It’s hard to miss, for example, how much of the first song consisted of the rapper standing around and listlessly chanting “redrum” while everyone in his vicinity compensated with maximal energy. As for the medley, it was nice to see the SNL spotlight shine on Faiyaz and Walker, but the low-energy headliner couldn’t help but get lost in the din of it all.
15. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” and “Feather”https://www.npr.org/”Nonsense” (5/18/24)
Sabrina Carpenter.
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Sabrina Carpenter.
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Sabrina Carpenter is an actress and former Disney Channel star who’s riding the pop charts with a cryptically worded earworm called “Espresso.” If that’s all you knew of Carpenter going into her SNL debut, her two performances — of “Espresso,” naturally, but also a medley of her songs “Feather” and “Nonsense” — were there to tell you that she’s also extremely aware of her haters.
In the opening frame of her performance of “Espresso,” newspaper headlines screamed about Carpenter while making light of the song’s puzzling grammar. (See? She knows!) Then, her conversational asides in the medley — “I’m on SNL and you’re not!” — seemed engineered to dull the sting of critiques that hadn’t even been written yet.
By the end of “Nonsense,” Carpenter seemed to lose steam, vocally, but her notes of defiance weren’t terribly necessary to begin with. There’s nothing wrong with just being fun, especially this year, and Carpenter is a welcome, agreeable presence, on the pop charts and beyond.
14. Billie Eilish, “What Was I Made For?” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (12/16/23)
Billie Eilish, accompanied by Finneas.
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Billie Eilish, accompanied by Finneas.
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Billie Eilish has a history of dominating SNL‘s Studio 8H with inventive staging that maximizes the space around her. This Barbie– and holiday-themed set was bound to be more subdued than that, though, as neither “What Was I Made For?” nor “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” call for much in the way of motion.
Instead, this set placed Eilish in mournful-chanteuse mode and left her there alongside her brother, Finneas (on the piano), and for the holiday number, guest bassist Christian McBride. Vocally, she did a typically lovely job, though she does get dinged half a point for going with “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” instead of “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” We “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” stans are sticklers that way.
13. Travis Scott, “MY EYES” and “FE!N (feat. Playboi Carti)” (3/30/24)
Travis Scott.
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Travis Scott.
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Give Travis Scott credit: The man is willing to attempt some big swings. Take his SNL performance of “MY EYES,” which opened with the rapper lying in repose as a Bon Iver sample rolled behind him. Giving the track time to build, Scott hung back as the song bloomed into something disorienting and wild and full of motion — in its lighting, in the screened projections behind him and in his own frenetic physical presence.
Then, in “FE!N,” that willingness to experiment took him almost entirely off the rails. Thanks to thick smoke, strobe lights and herky-jerky camera motions — courtesy of a pair of hydraulic arms that swung wildly and kept pulling Scott and guest Playboi Carti out of frame — the song was rendered almost entirely incoherent, both sonically and visually. At one point, the only clear image on the screen was of one of Carti’s white boots, which … wasn’t a lot to go on.
12. Chris Stapleton, “White Horse” and “Mountains of My Mind” (4/13/24)
Chris and Morgane Stapleton.
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Chris and Morgane Stapleton.
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Chris Stapleton has built a tremendous career — and won countless awards — working from a foundation of no-frills, guitar-forward country-rock. But while that sturdy songcraft makes Stapleton one of the most reliably compelling figures in modern music, a resistance to stagecraft can make it harder for SNL performances to reach towering heights.
Instead, Stapleton settled for cranking out two absolutely stellar songs — one with his band (“White Horse”) and one with just an acoustic guitar (“Mountains of My Mind”). The former labored to overcome an iffy sound mix — Stapleton’s wife, Morgane, was almost inaudible — but the latter song got stripped down enough to let listeners hang on the singer’s every word. Sometimes, shining a light on exceptional raw material is enough.
11. Justin Timberlake, “Sanctified (feat. Tobe Nwigwe)” and “Selfish” (1/27/24)
Justin Timberlake.
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Justin Timberlake.
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Justin Timberlake is nothing if not a committed maximalist — this is, after all, a guy who turned up at the Tiny Desk backed by 14 other musicians — and that commitment to grandiosity served him exceptionally well in his SNL performance of “Sanctified.” The arrangement leaned on take-’em-to-church energy from the jump, but the whole thing got more viscerally exciting as it went along — especially once Tobe Nwigwe and a team of dancers showed up for a full-blown strobe-lit spectacle.
“Selfish,” on the other hand … hoo boy. You could make a strong case that it’s the most uneventful single of Timberlake’s solo career, and it was done no favors by flat staging that stranded the singer at the center of it all. Timberlake is a superstar, no question, but the vibes here were giving “low-energy Robin Thicke.”
So there you have it: dizzying highs, deadening lows and nothing in between. There isn’t much choice, then, but to grade this one squarely in the middle.
10. Bad Bunny, “UN PREVIEW” and “MONACO” (10/21/23)
Bad Bunny.
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Bad Bunny.
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Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny pulled double duty as musical guest and host, which can often lead to scaled-down performances. In the case of “UN PREVIEW,” that held true, as the artist rapped over a prerecorded track in front of a spare white set and a gyrating mechanical rocking horse — visually striking yet not terribly memorable, unless you really like gyrating mechanical rocking horses.
For “MONACO,” the production value improved considerably, as Bad Bunny sat on a table while flanked by a frenetic coterie of seated, bug-masked dancers. A pair of string players even helped flesh out the instrumentation — a step up from the rote backing beats of “UN PREVIEW” — but neither performance made the absolute most of Bad Bunny’s weapons-grade star power.
9. Foo Fighters, “Rescued” and “The Glass (feat. H.E.R.)” (10/28/23)
Foo Fighters and special guest H.E.R.
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Foo Fighters and special guest H.E.R.
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It feels silly to refer to a Foo Fighters appearance on SNL as “long-awaited,” given that Dave Grohl’s band has been a featured musical guest nine times in the past three decades. But this was actually a makeup date, as the group was supposed to close out the previous season, before said season got truncated by the Writers Guild of America strike.
Even six months later, Foo Fighters’ performance of “Rescued” and “The Glass” marked the band’s first TV appearance since the death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022. And, given the themes of the group’s newest album — last year’s excellent But Here We Are reflects on the loss of not only Hawkins, but also Grohl’s mother — the band invested this performance with considerable, long-pent-up emotion.
Surrounded by vintage electronics — low-tech radar screens, black-and-white TVs, that sort of thing — Foo Fighters’ members bashed their way through “Rescued” with abandon, as Grohl pushed the limits of even his own vein-bulging intensity. “The Glass” felt more contained, bringing in H.E.R. to lend the band a fourth guitar (complete with solo) and transform the song into a ragged but moving duet. Not unforgettable, but solid, for sure.
8. Dua Lipa, “Illusion” and “Happy for You” (5/4/24)
Dua Lipa.
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Dua Lipa.
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Dua Lipa may have inspired the “go girl, give us nothing” meme, but she’s evolved into a flashy stage performer who’s unafraid of cardio-intensive choreo. Aided by a phalanx of men in mesh tank tops, “Illusion” went all-in on synchronized grinding, complete with body rolls. Though the overall effect felt a little robotic, it’s difficult to argue with the effort level.
“Happy for You,” which closes Lipa’s new album, Radical Optimism, didn’t go quite as hard on the SNL stage, but that’s not all bad: A refreshingly generous breakup song, the track stood up well to the sparkly staging Lipa gave it. Flinging her hair against a barrage of smoky white high beams, the singer looked and sounded for all the world like an icon of dramatically lit magnanimity.
7. Vampire Weekend, “Gen-X Cops” and “Capricorn” (5/11/24)
Vampire Weekend.
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Vampire Weekend.
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On paper, Vampire Weekend’s assignment didn’t seem tough: Veteran rock bands on the SNL stage are generally expected to bypass the high-tech stagecraft expected of younger pop, hip-hop and R&B stars. But Vampire Weekend’s fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, doesn’t translate to the stage easily, with complex, unsettled, frequently abrasive songs that pour on the clutter.
Praise is due, then, for pulling off the new tracks “Gen-X Cops” and “Capricorn” without sacrificing their layered intricacy. It helps that the band filled the stage with supporting players to help bring these tracks to life, and it’s a testament to Vampire Weekend’s diligence that everyone involved stayed on the right side of the blurry line between “ornate” and “chaotic.” Ezra Koenig’s vocals didn’t always pop the way they should, but he and his band pulled off performances that were considerably trickier than they may have looked.
6. Tate McRae, “greedy” and “grave” (11/18/23)
Tate McRae.
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Tate McRae.
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Canadian pop singer and dancer Tate McRae first achieved prominence as a finalist on So You Think You Can Dance, so it’s only natural that she’d lean into physicality in her SNL debut. Clad in short shorts and a small cape made out of what appeared to be tattered rags, McRae performed her ubiquitous hit, “greedy,” on a set of bleachers, flanked by dancers in an arrangement that poured on the choreography — particularly later on, when McRae handed off the mic for a positively gymnastic bit of solo gyration.
It’s a performance that scored maximum points for effort, while still standing on its own, vocally. The ballad “grave” proved less eventful, as it brought McRae to a literal standstill, but by then, she’d already demonstrated that she belonged on that stage.
5. Noah Kahan, “Dial Drunk” and “Stick Season” (12/2/23)
Noah Kahan.
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Noah Kahan.
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Remember that scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home where a portal opened and a bunch of the villains from past Spider-Man movies poured out? We’re having a moment like that in music, except replace “villains” with “earnest, oft-bearded folk singers” and “past Spider-Man movies” with “a folk-rock sound that was hugely popular a decade ago.” Noah Kahan, Benson Boone, Teddy Swims … heck, Hozier is back! Mumford & Sons released a new single earlier this year; this is not a coincidence, people.
Kahan offers a winningly gregarious variation on this new old sound, and his SNL debut leaned hard on the stomp-and-clap agreeability of it all. You want a banjo? We’ve got a banjo! You want man-of-the-woods set dressing? The sticks dangling from the ceiling are there to threaten everyone in sight with impalement from above! This folk-pop sound had left the public’s consciousness for a while, and both “Dial Drunk” and “Stick Season” could hardly be catchier, so … why not? Kahan is your lovable-everyman time traveler, here to remind you that 2012 wasn’t too bad in hindsight.
4. Ariana Grande, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” and “imperfect for you” (3/9/24)
Ariana Grande.
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Ariana Grande.
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If you’re among those who left Ariana Grande’s recent album, eternal sunshine, feeling underwhelmed — if its synth-pop airiness crossed a line into seeming lightweight — then these performances ought to help bring its themes and charms into focus. It helps that each song was accompanied by a visual feast, as vast screens conjured up vivid plant life, celestial wonders and, during a particularly striking moment in “we can’t be friends (wait for your love),” an all-engulfing tidal wave. Grande was essentially performing in front of the most awe-inspiring karaoke backdrop of all time, but damned if it didn’t work beautifully.
Just as importantly, her voice has grown deeper and richer over time: Grande’s been working in musical theater, not to mention filming the Wicked movies, and that experience has clearly carried over to her day job. It wasn’t just the special effects that made the stage seem bigger than it was.
3. RAYE, “Escapism.” and “Worth It.” (4/6/24)
RAYE.
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There’s an everything-everywhere-all-at-once quality to the music of British pop star RAYE, who dominated this year’s BRIT Awards and has been breaking out in the U.S. after writing hits for the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna. RAYE’s own songs mash together elements of jazz, blues, R&B, gospel and timeless big-band pop, with grand arrangements that make use of strings, horns and choirs.
It’s a lot to digest, and she brought every scrap of it to her SNL debut: “Escapism.” and “Worth It.” each made full use of a small city’s worth of supporting players. But at their center was the rich voice, impeccable style and easy charisma of RAYE herself. Given its strength as a promotional vehicle for huge stars, SNL doesn’t get a chance to feature many discoveries. But for those who might still be unfamiliar with RAYE, this marked a grand introduction.
2. Olivia Rodrigo, “vampire” and “all-american b****” (12/9/23)
Olivia Rodrigo.
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Olivia Rodrigo.
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Sometimes, artists pour all their creative resources into their first SNL song of the night, then dial it back for a closer that feels like a time-filler. Not so with Olivia Rodrigo, who led with a stately, piano-forward reading of her hit “vampire” before committing to full-on berserkitude in “all-american b****,” complete with a stomped cake and a ruined dress.
As with much of Rodrigo’s catalog so far, it’s easy to draw a straight line from this reading of “all-american b****” to a footnoted catalog of alt-rock influences — in this case Courtney Love, whose odes to trashed beauty are emulated with perfectionist precision. But it’s hard to argue with the result, which pairs brash theatrics with a vocal that’s unmistakably on-point. Rodrigo is great at this.
1. boygenius, “Not Strong Enough” and “Satanist” (11/11/23)
boygenius.
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boygenius.
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In a performance that checked every box, boygenius came to SNL armed with high-concept presentation — Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus dressed as The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, complete with a Beatles-esque logo on the kick drum — as well as a pogoing backing band, wicked ear-to-ear grins, flinging hair, the occasional light show and, in the case of “Not Strong Enough,” the best song of 2023. How could this set not work?
Aside from a muffled vocal here and there, this was a master class in how to maximize the SNL stage while having an absolute blast in the process. All it needed was a guitar flung into the abyss, and Baker checked that box with a vengeance at the close of “Satanist.” Every imaginable mission: accomplished.
The art industry is increasingly shaped by artists’ and art businesses’ shared realization that they are locked in a fierce struggle for sustained attention — against each other, and against the rest of the overstimulated, always-online world. A major New York art fair aims to win this competition next month by knocking down the increasingly shaky walls between contemporary art and fashion.
When visitors enter the Independent art fair on May 14, they will almost immediately encounter its open-plan centerpiece: an installation of recent couture looks from Comme des Garçons. It will be the first New York solo presentation of works by Rei Kawakubo, the brand’s founder and mastermind, since a lauded 2017 survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Art fairs have often been front and center in the industry’s 21st-century quest to capture mindshare. But too many displays have pierced the zeitgeist with six-figure spectacles, like Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana and Beeple’s robot dogs. Curating Independent around Comme des Garçons comes from the conviction that a different kind of iconoclasm can rise to the top of New York’s spring art scrum.
Elizabeth Dee, the founder and creative director of Independent, said that making Kawakubo’s work the “nerve center” of this year’s edition was a “statement of purpose” for the fair’s evolution. After several years at the compact Spring Studios in TriBeCa, Independent will more than double its square footage by moving to Pier 36 at South Street, on the East River. Dee has narrowed the fair’s exhibitor list, to 76, from 83 dealers in 2025, and reduced booth fees to encourage a focus on single artists making bold propositions.
“Rei’s work has been pivotal to thinking about how my work as a curator, gallerist and art fair can push boundaries, especially during this extraordinary move toward corporatization and monoculture in the art world in the last 20 years,” Dee said.
Kawakubo’s designs have been challenging norms since her brand’s first Paris runway show in 1981, but her work over the last 13 years on what she calls “objects for the body” has blurred borders between high fashion and wearable sculpture.
The Comme des Garçons presentation at Independent will feature 20 looks from autumn-winter 2020 to spring-summer 2025. Forgoing the runway, Kawakubo is installing her non-clothing inside structures made from rebar and colored plastic joinery.
Adrian Joffe, the president of both Comme des Garçons International and the curated retailer Dover Street Market International (and who is also Kawakubo’s husband), said in an interview that Kawakubo’s intention was to create a sculptural installation divorced from chronology and fashion — “a thing made new again.”
Every look at Independent was made in an edition of three or fewer, but only one of each will be for sale on-site. Prices will be about $9,000 to $30,000. Comme des Garçons will retain 100 percent of the sales.
Asked why she was interested in exhibiting at Independent, the famously elusive Kawakubo said via email, “The body of work has never been shown together, and this is the first presentation in New York in almost 10 years.” Joffe added a broader philosophical motivation. “We’ve never done it before; it was new,” he said. Also essential was the fair’s willingness to embrace Kawakubo’s vision for the installation rather than a standard fair booth.
Kawakubo began consistently engaging with fine art decades before such crossovers became commonplace. Since 1989, she has invited a steady stream of contemporary artists to create installations in Comme des Garçons’s Tokyo flagship store. The ’90s brought collaborations with the artist Cindy Sherman and performance pioneer Merce Cunningham, among others.
More cross-disciplinary projects followed, including limited-release direct mailers for Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo designs each from documentation of works provided by an artist or art collective.
The display at Independent reopens the debate about Kawakubo’s proper place on the continuum between artist and designer. But the issue is already settled for celebrated artists who have collaborated with her.
“I totally think of Rei as an artist in the truest sense,” Sherman said by email. “Her work questions what everyone else takes for granted as being flattering to a body, questions what female bodies are expected to look like and who they’re catering to.”
Ai Weiwei, the subject of a 2010 Comme des Garçons direct mailer, agreed that Kawakubo “is, in essence, an artist.” Unlike designers who “pursue a sense of form,” he added, “her design and creation are oriented toward attitude” — specifically, an attitude of “rebellion.”
Also taking this position is “Costume Art,” the spring exhibition at the Costume Institute. Opening May 10, the show pairs individual works from multiple designers — including Comme des Garçons — with artworks from the Met’s holdings to advance the argument made by the dress code for this year’s Met gala: “Fashion is art.”
True to form, Kawakubo sometimes opts for a third way.
“Rei has often said she’s not a designer, she’s not an artist,” Joffe said. “She is a storyteller.”
Now to find out whether an art fair sparks the drama, dialogue and attention its authors want.
Lifestyle
They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops
Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.
“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.
As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.
Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.
The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.
1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage
A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.
But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.
Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.
2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority
As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.
Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.
3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine
Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.
Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.
4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits
One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.
The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.
5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes
A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.
If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.
When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.
Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.
6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing
While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.
As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).
When John Lantigua, a retired journalist in Miami Beach, checked his email one recent morning, he was glad to see an invitation.
“It was like, ‘Come and share an evening with me. Click here for details,’” Mr. Lantigua said.
It appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from someone he once worked with at The Palm Beach Post, a man who had left Florida for Mississippi and liked to arrange dinners when he was back in town.
Mr. Lantigua, 78, clicked the link. It didn’t open.
He clicked a second time. Still nothing.
He didn’t realize what was going on until a mutual friend who had received the same email told him it wasn’t an invitation at all. It was a scam.
Phishing scams have long tried to frighten people into clicking on links with emails claiming that their bank accounts have been hacked, or that they owe thousands of dollars in fines, or that their pornography viewing habits have been tracked.
The invitation scam is a little more subtle: It preys on the all-too-human desire to be included in social gatherings.
The phishy invitations mimic emails from Paperless Post, Evite and Punchbowl. What appears to be a friendly overture from someone you know is really a digital Trojan horse that gives scammers access to your personal information.
“I thought it was diabolical that they would choose somebody who has sent me a legitimate invitation before,” Mr. Lantigua said. “He’s a friend of mine. If he’s coming to town, I want to see him.”
Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity firm, said she noticed the scam last holiday season.
“Phishing emails are not a new thing,” Ms. Tobac said, “but every six months, we get a new lure that hijacks our amygdala in new ways. There’s such a desire for folks to get together that this lure is interesting to people. They want to go to a party.”
Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.
Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.
“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”
Digital invitation platforms are trying to combat the scam by publishing guides on how to spot fake invitations. Paperless Post has also set up an email account — phishing@paperlesspost.com — for users to submit messages for verification. The company sends suspicious links to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit that maintains a database monitored by cybersecurity firms. Flagged links are rendered ineffective.
The scammers’ new strategy of exploiting the desire for connection is infuriating, said Alexa Hirschfeld, a founder of Paperless Post. “Life can be isolating,” Ms. Hirschfeld said. “When it looks like you’re getting an invitation from someone you know, your first instinct is excitement, not skepticism.”
Olivia Pollock, the vice president of brand for Evite, said that fake invitations tended to be generic, promising a birthday party or a celebration of life. Most invitations these days tend to have a specific focus — mahjong gatherings or book club talks, for instance. “The devil is in the details,” Ms. Pollock said.
Because scammers don’t know how close you are with the people in your contact list, fake invitations may also seem random. “They could be from your business school roommate you haven’t spoken to in 10 years,” Ms. Hirschfeld said.
Alyssa Williamson, who works in public relations in New York, was leaving a yoga class recently when she checked her phone and saw an invitation from a college classmate.
“I assumed it was an alumni event,” Ms. Williamson, 30, said. “I clicked on it, and it was like, ‘Enter your email.’ I didn’t even think about it.”
Later that day, she received texts from friends asking her about the party invitation she had just sent out. Her response: What party?
“The thing is, I host a lot of events,” she said. “Some knew it was fake. Others were like, ‘What’s this? I can’t open it.’”
Andrew Smith, a graduate student in finance who lives in Manhattan, received what looked like a Punchbowl invitation to “a memory making celebration.” It appeared to have come from a woman he had dated in college. He received it when he was having drinks at a bar on a Friday night — “a pretty insidious piece of timing,” he said.
“The choice of sender was super clever,” Mr. Smith, 29, noted. “This was somebody that would probably get a reaction from me.”
Mr. Smith seized on the phrase “memory making celebration” and filled in the blanks. He imagined that someone in his ex-girlfriend’s immediate family had died. Perhaps she wanted to restart contact at this difficult moment.
Something saved him when he clicked a link and tried to tap out his personal information — his inability to remember the password to his email account. The next day, he reached out to his ex, who confirmed that the invitation was fake.
“It didn’t trigger any alarm bells,” Mr. Smith said. “I went right for the click. I went completely animal brain.”
The new scam comes with an unfortunate side effect, a suspicion of invitations altogether. It’s enough to make a person antisocial.
“Don’t invite me to anything,” Mr. Lantigua, the retired journalist, said, only half-joking. “I’m not coming.”
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