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SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: THE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES, VOLUME 1 and VOLUME 2

(DreamWorks)

As historical documents, these two 15-track collections (sold separately) of performances culled from two and a half decades of Saturday Night Live have less value than you might think. VH-1's five-part series documenting the music of Saturday Night Live did a much better job delving into the significance of music to the show and putting the performances into context.

It is remarkable, for example, that Elvis Costello's '70s rendition of "Radio, Radio" turns up on Volume 1 unedited, if only because at the time it was so controversial -- Costello was supposed to do "Less Than Zero," but he cut the Attractions off several bars into that song and launched furiously into the punk-inspired media critique of "Radio, Radio," a stunt that reportedly infuriated the producers of the show. (In the VH-1 retrospective, SNL's then music director sternly recalls that Elvis "stopped the show," as if that were a capital crime.) What's more, "Radio, Radio," for all its fury, ends up on the volume devoted to more middle-of-the-road artists like Sting ("If I Ever Lose My Faith in You"), Eric Clapton ("Wonderful Tonight"), Jewel ("Who Will Save Your Soul"), and Billy Joel ("Only the Good Die Young"), as does David Bowie's searing version of "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)." Volume 2, on the other hand, is devoted to more "alternative" fare from Nirvana ("Rape Me"), Green Day ("When I Come Around"), and Beck ("Nobody's Fault But My Own"), as well as all the people of color (save Lenny Kravitz, whose "Are You Gonna Go My Way" is white enough to make it onto Volume 1) like TLC ("Creep"), Dr. Dre ("Been There Done That"), and Mary J. Blige ("Reminisce"). Which I suppose says more about where we're at today then it does about how things were back in the day.

-- Matt Ashare