Todd Snider Albums (10)
What The Critics Say
Todd Snider's sense of humor sets him apart from most singer/songwriters. It's both his blessing and his curse, since serious industry types seem to think that "funny" songs automatically should be filed in the novelty bin. The humor of classics like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" is subtle to be sure, but they are poignant and hilarious comments on the human condition. Snider can be scathing, as he was on 2008's Peace Queer, but mostly he delivers his tunes with tongue more or less in cheek. The ironically titled Excitement Plan follows the template of his other albums, with bemused observations of human foolishness that manage to be biting and compassionate at the same time. Things open on a folky note with the acoustic "Slim Chance," one of the few optimistic songs on the album. He plays basic guitar and harmonica and sings: "I found a four-leaf clover in my yard today, it had one leaf missing off it, but that was OK." It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but a telling observation about our ability always to see the silver lining, even in a funnel-shaped cloud. The other tunes on the album aren't as upbeat. "Greencastle Blues" is a country tune with a despondent steel guitar complementing its literary lyric of a man slowly sinking down into the sunset of his life. "Doll Face" is a talking country blues that might be the tale of a child's toy, or a woman treated badly by every man she meets. There's a faint glimmer of hope at the end of the tune, but Snider's ragged delivery doesn't really promise salvation. "Corpus Christi Bay" is another quiet character sketch, just Snider and his guitar, this time of an oil rig worker slowly drinking himself to death. It's unrelentingly grim, relieved only by Snider's dark humor. When the protagonist in the song meets up with his brother after a long separation he tells listeners: "(My brother) finally gave up drinking, then he ordered me a beer." Snider wrote "Don't Tempt Me Baby" with Loretta Lynn, who adds her vocals to the track, a solid cheatin' song with some boogie-woogie piano in the background to give it an old-time country flavor. "Money, Compliments, Publicity" is a complaint about the music business, and like most songs of its ilk, it doesn't work very well. It's hard to take the artistic struggles of anyone still lucky enough to have a record deal in 2009 all that seriously. The album closes with "Good Fortune," a jaunty tune full of sunshine that rides a bluesy Dixieland groove and lets you know that not everything in Snider's universe is as gloomy as most of his songs. ~ j. poet, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Near the end of this eight-song EP, Todd Snider steps up to the microphone and tells his listeners that while his work may have become more "opinionated" lately, "I did not do this to change your mind about anything; I did this to ease my own mind about everything." And Snider isn't shy about getting his feelings off his chest on Peace Queer, which for the most part plays as a final kiss-off to eight years of George W. Bush and his various wars, both foreign and domestic. While the villain of the piece is never mentioned by name, the tale of the school bully on "Is This Thing Working?" and its sister song, "Is This Thing On?," is a clear enough metaphor, and the cover of John Fogerty's "Fortunate Son" makes the old antiwar chestnut sound like it was written last week, with the Man from Crawford as its protagonist. In many respects, Peace Queer (which takes its title from a song by the Fugs) isn't that far removed from Snider's earlier work -- the sly humor, the loose but emphatic performances, and Snider's playfully soulful vocals will sound familiar to anyone who has been following his work. And "Stuck on the Corner" and "Dividing the Estate" give Snider a chance to air his feelings about a number of other forms of national malaise in the new millennium (the former is summed up nicely by the chorus "Making money out of paper/Making paper out of trees/We're making so much money we can hardly breathe"). Why Snider waited so long to share his feelings about the state of the nation is anyone's guess (perhaps as a show of support to the loyal opposition in an election year?), but Peace Queer is a short and bittersweet gem, a rant that's funny enough to make the venom sting all the more and a cry of protest with joy and compassion in its heart. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Universal Music's New Door Records subsidiary has the unusual if not unprecedented assignment of giving artists second chances at major label contracts. It seeks out people who once recorded for labels now controlled by Universal and re-signs them. Singer/songwriter Todd Snider had a three-record tenure with Margaritaville Records, Jimmy Buffett's vanity imprint with MCA, which later merged with PolyGram to form Universal. Snider then went to John Prine's indie label, Oh Boy Records. Universal signaled its renewed interest in Snider in 2005 when its Hip-O reissue subsidiary released That Was Me: The Best of Todd Snider 1994-1998, and now New Door has brought him back into the fold. Snider is certainly a man in need of second chances, in both personal and career terms, and his talent suggests he's also deserving of another look. Throughout his career, he has been a charter member of popular music's club of endearing screwups, tracing back to Hank Williams and beyond, artists whose talent could not be untangled from their tendency toward bad behavior. He remains unrepentant on The Devil You Know, playing alternately in Rolling Stones-like rock & roll arrangements and hard country acoustic styles. The characters in his songs, many of them first-person narrators, are charming ne'er-do-wells, starting with the one in the Chuck Berry-style rocker "If Tomorrow Never Comes" who snarls, "If tomorrow never comes, I don't give a damn." (No, this isn't a cover of the super-sensitive Garth Brooks song of the same title.) From there, the "I" characters spar with their bosses, their old friends, and their girlfriends, never too far away from another drink and another trip down the road. Snider is acutely aware that other performers have been down that road before. In "Thin Wild Mercury" (a title Dylanologists will recognize as Bob Dylan's description of the sound he was looking for when he made Blonde on Blonde), Snider eulogizes Phil Ochs, recalling a reported dispute between Ochs and Dylan. It's no surprise that his sympathies lie with Ochs, who self-destructed, rather than Dylan, who went on to a long career. Addressing an equally dissolute friend of his in "Just Like Old Times," Snider sings admiringly, "Your goal was always the same as mine/You didn't want to throw a fishin' line in that old mainstream." And that brings back the question of what Snider is doing on a major label again. But then, if they offered, why not? And perhaps the answer is found in the album title. Certainly, he hasn't done any compromising for commercialism on this disc, other than perhaps to spend a little more money in the studio. The executives at New Door, for their part, may feel that they have Ryan Adams' long lost older brother on their hands. And they may be right. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'East Nashville Skyline'
Release Date 1/1/2004
Tracks 12
Label Oh Boy
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Regardless of any opinions concerning his music, each successive release from singer/songwriter Todd Snider should be looked upon as a precious gift. His continuous battles against various addictions and depression have had him down for the count on several occasions, prompting speculation that his latest release could be his last. Snider is not oblivious to this situation and freely discusses it in East Nashville Skyline's opening ditty, "Age Like Wine." A short summation of his life and career thus far, he recognizes that it's "too late to die young now," and concedes with a sly wink that "I thought that I'd be dead by now...but I'm not." Indeed he could have been, because in early 2004 Snider had a close call that put him in rehab for the third time. Once again he escaped with a little less stomach lining and a head full of songs that are replete with the wry humor, observations, and confessions that have garnered him a loyal fan base. With production and musical assistance from Will Kimbrough (Will & the Bushmen, Bis-Quits), East Nashville Skyline ambles down the same organic folk path that Snider first groomed on 2000's Happy to Be Here. The sparse instrumentation and lo-fi production are a perfect fit for Snider's twangy country-tinged songs that ruminate on politics, death, the places he has been, and the colorful folks he has met. He recounts his mistaken incarceration in the "Tillamook County Jail," pays tribute to a fun-lovin' drinking buddy in "Play a Train Song," and defends the backwoods musical reputation of "Nashville," where there is "nothing wrong with pickin' out in the sticks." More so than his previous discs, Snider has loaded Skyline with his trademark observational songs in which he offers pointed views that rarely sound self-indulgent or preachy. "The Ballad of the Kingsmen" wonders why the religious right and the government are so quick to blame rock music for the moral decline of our youth, while "Incarcerated" spouts off a bloated list of implausible excuses given by a defendant who happily appears on a television courtroom program. Although Snider gets his point across in an entertaining way, these songs tend to wear out after a few listens and do not have the lasting power of his more melodic songs like the beautiful "Sunshine," in which a suicidal jumper gets a second chance and comes to appreciate what life has to offer. Even though the song is not autobiographical, there is a lot of Todd Snider within the lyrics, and when he ends the album with "Enjoy Yourself," it feels as if he has reached a point in his life where he may be getting things under control. East Nashville Skyline may be a bit too relaxed and not quite as focused as his previous discs, but the sheer enjoyment of making music can be heard throughout and a revitalized Todd Snider has crafted another gift that, one hopes, will not be his last. ~ Aaron Latham, All Music Guide
'Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live'
Release Date 5/13/2003
Tracks 23
Label Oh Boy
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What The Critics Say
Todd Snider's first live album, on which he accompanies himself on guitar and harmonica in folky style, conveys a stage personality only glimpsed in the more humorous of his songs on his previous five studio recordings. Snider performs his share of sensitive, reflective tunes, but they are overwhelmed by the funny ones and by his offbeat, spacy persona, which is equally laugh-provoking. Snider's similarity to John Prine, the head of his record label, is accentuated in songs like "I Can't Complain," which is full of cracked aphorisms and employs a fingerpicking style that seems borrowed from Prine. But elsewhere, Snider displays his own alcohol-drenched sense of humor, giving off a scatterbrained impression that sometimes recalls Arlo Guthrie, but is a bit less goofy (if equally wily) and a bit more like that of a drug casualty. "The Story of the Devil's Backbone Tavern," not a song but a lengthy introduction to a song called "The Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern" (itself featuring a lot of talking), presents Snider's autobiography, which makes him sound like more of an inebriated good old boy than he could possibly be, but it is amusing. "Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues," which passes for his greatest hit, is dated by now, but still imaginative. Near Truths and Hotel Rooms may be closer to a comedy act than a concert, but if so, it's got most of the country comedians beat and assures that Snider has a career to fall back on if the music gig doesn't pan out. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
New Connection -- Todd Snider's fifth album and the second for John Prine's Oh Boy label -- finds the singer riding atop a warm band featuring Jason Wilber and David Jacques (both of Prine's touring unit), Paul Griffith, and Will Kimbrough. Like Kevn Kinney, Snider's voice alternates between a drawl and a scratch, occasionally dropping into Jim White-like whispers. It is in these cracks that Snider finds a wry strength, which he hangs on his almost traditional singer/songwriter wares. There are humorous tunes -- "Vinyl Records," "Beer Run," and "Statistician's Blues" -- but they're rarely anything more than cute. "Broke," meanwhile, sounds like a Nashville version of Lou Reed's "Goodnight Ladies." Snider gets a few elegiac beauties into the mix, too, including the subtly produced "Easy" and the almost heartbreaking "Class of 85." These are fine songs. Prine takes a guest turn on his own "Crooked Piece of Time," which fits in with the rest of the record almost too well. ~ Jesse Jarnow, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Snider is amiable enough on his first album for John Prine's label, and he's taken his literal move to Nashville figuratively as well -- becoming a more conventional singer/songwriter in the process, downplaying the quirks that got him noticed initially. There are some nice things here, and the horns are a particularly welcome blast of fun. ~ Michael Gallucci, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
It may not be Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but the third studio release from southern rocker Todd Snider sure sounds like it. There are plenty of suspended and liberated guitar breaks here, plus a gentle country twang, and despite the annoying imitation of Tom Petty on several tracks, Viva Satellite has enough of a good-ol'-boy honky-tonk feel, that it can stand well on its own merit. With a distinctive bluegrass/pop country slant, Todd Snider has produced a collection of familiar sounding melodies that will win you over. The reverence paid to the masters of countrified blues-rock Arlo Guthrie and Neil Young may be a bit on the heavy side, however on cuts like "Rocket Fuel," and the gospel-tinged "Godsend," Todd Snider proves he has a signature style all his own. ~ Roxanne Blanford, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Picking up where he left off with his exceptional debut Songs for the Daily Planet Todd Snider continues his ragged-but-right blend of folk, country and rootsy rock & roll on this 14-song release. At times brilliant, Snider's songwriting talent is still intact, as is his passionate voice and the superb instrumental backing by his band the Nervous Wrecks. The first single "I Believe You" is a hopeful testament of the singer's faith in human nature. Keen observations of social and political issues are honestly presented, using wit and humor as in "Side Show Blues," "Tension," and with kick-in-the-gut seriousness -- "T.V. Guide," "24 Hours a Day." It's not all weighty stuff though -- the swampy "Moon Dawg's Tavern" and the Chuck Berry-esque rocker "Late Last Night" are just plain fun. Hear him out; he's got a lot to say. ~ Jack Leaver, All Music Guide
'Songs for the Daily Planet'
Release Date 10/11/1994
Tracks 12
Label MCA
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
It's ironic that Todd Snider's first radio exposure would come from a song included on his debut as an afterthought and contained as a "hidden" track. "Talking Seattle Grunge-Rock Blues" is reminiscent of early Dylan, hilarious in its satire as a clever dose of good-natured pokes at the industry hype surrounding the Seattle music scene (including references to Eddie Vedder and Nirvana). Although he is a very talented songwriter with a keen wit, at times Snider is just a little too consciously contrived for his own good, threatening to reduce his art to novelty. For instance, the extremely countrified "My Generation, Pt. 2" and the Mellencamp-esque "Alright Guy" are very humorous observations, but dangerously close to sounding trite, especially when compared to the seriousness of the chilling "You Think You Know Somebody," which deals with the ramifications of child abuse. A rootsy record that combines country and folk elements with a genuine rock & roll sensibility, Songs for the Daily Planet also features some cutting fretwork by one of Nashville's finest young guitarists, Eddy Shaver, the son of country outlaw Billy Joe Shaver, one of Snider's heroes. Overall a fine introduction to a remarkable voice. ~ Jack Leaver, All Music Guide
