Alabama Shakes Bring New ‘Sound & Color’ Tracks to ‘SNL’
Alabama Shakes will release their much-anticipated second album Sound & Color in April, and to get folks revved up for their follow-up to 2012’s Boys & Girls, the bluesy rockers hit up the Dakota Johnson-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live to share a pair of new tracks, first single “Don’t Wanna Fight” and “Gimme All Your Love.”
In Rolling Stone‘s review of “Don’t Wanna Fight,” we compared the track to James Brown’s “Cold Sweat,” but lead singer Brittany Howard hinted at another inspiration by wearing earrings bearing Prince’s image for their SNL musical guest spot. “We took our time to write this record, and I’m really glad we did,” Howard said of Sound & Color in a statement. “We were able to sit down and think about what’s exciting to us. This record is full of genre-bending songs.”
That genre-bending is also evident on “Gimme All Your Love,” a slow burner where Howard showcases her remarkable, Best New Artist Grammy-nominated singing abilities on the commanding chorus. The track starts off like a Janis Joplin ballad before unfolding into a spacey jam out of the My Morning Jacket playbook.
In addition to the Alabama Shakes, this episode of Saturday Night Live featured one more must-see musical moment as Jay Pharoah dusted off his impeccable Kanye West impersonation in the Weekend Update to explain his Twitter apology to Beck and to say sorry for a variety of reasons, including voting for himself instead of Michael Keaton for Best Actor at the Academy Awards and giving his daughter a directional name: