If you don't know the duo, Karmin's famous for doing covers of pop songs on YouTube. But Saturday night, they played two original songs on SNL.
Also of note: Karmin lead singer Amy Heidemann graduated from Seward High School in Seward, Neb. She met Nick Noonan and Berklee College of Music where they formed Karmin.
The first of the band's two songs on SNL, "Brokenhearted," was really poppy and will appeal to fans of Katy Perry or Pink. It's mostly innocuous and the band did sound pretty good with a full band behind them.
What wasn't so great was the rapping verses. Heidemann kind of went into this Nicki Minaj-style tone and it came off totally goofy. She sounded OK, but when she bent at the knees and started dishing rhymes, she looked very out of place.
Heidemann kept her goofy poof hairdo during the second song, "I Told You So," where she did even more rapping. The song was much more of a rap jam, and I think they'd do better to stick with the pop hooks.
Honestly, the whole thing feels a little forced from the rapping to the overall look. It's like they're trying to take everything that's popular right now (Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, etc.) and jam them all together. Both Noonan and Heidemann are really talented (and their covers are clever), but their originals end up coming off as imitations of other artists that are neither as as interesting nor as well-made as those they're imitating.
Honestly, I thought that was probably the best transition from YouTube music sensation to real life performance I've seen.
ReplyDeletei thought it was horrible! i feel like this could of been made at Ark Music factory!
ReplyDeleteI realized it's much better if you listen and don't watch. Though there's absolutely no reason for her to say "Cheerio," so it's just gimmicky, and I wish she didn't sound so much like Nicki Minaj - it'd make them more original.
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