1<\/p>\n
This is weird to me. For a journeyman singer, barely covered in the media, unknown to most, Todd Snider got some of the most glowing obituaries I’ve ever seen. Lengthy, with not only biographical information, but lyrical quotations…if one was not a fan a reader would think they’d missed out on something.<\/p>\n
If only Todd Snider was alive to see them.<\/p>\n
I was not the biggest Todd Snider fan. Actually, I was not that much of a fan at all. I was paying attention at the advent, when he released his first album on Jimmy Buffett’s label Mailboat, distributed and promoted by MCA.<\/p>\n
You see there was a triumvirate of AOR promotion people at Atlantic. Dedicated, successful and fun, and one, David Fleischman left the New York office for L.A., to work for MCA. Supposedly a soul singer in Memphis before he switched sides (and subsequent histories of Memphis soul have confirmed this), Fleischman was called “Flash,” and he was anything but, flashy that it is. He sold the music in a low-key way. And the first project he worked for MCA was Todd Snider. Who had this track “Alright Guy.”<\/p>\n
“You know just the other morning I was hanging around in my house<\/p>\n
I had that new book with pictures of Madonna naked, I was checking it out<\/p>\n
Just then a friend of mine came through the door<\/p>\n
Said she’d never picked me for a scumbag before<\/p>\n
She said she didn’t ever want to see me anymore<\/p>\n
And I still don’t know why<\/p>\n
I think I’m an alright guy<\/p>\n
I think I’m an alright guy”<\/p>\n
Now if that doesn’t bring you back… When Madonna was surfing the zeitgeist of popular stardom, testing limits all the while. Today pop stars bare their wares on OnlyFans, and Google will show you so much T&A you’ll end up bored.<\/p>\n
But that’s kind of my point. Remember how big Madonna was back then?<\/p>\n
Nobody’s that big anymore. Never mind today it’s more about money than pushing the envelope. Multiple copies of vinyl albums. Show grosses. What is being sold underneath has the nutritional value of cotton candy.<\/p>\n
But not Todd Snider.<\/p>\n
And just like Madonna, Snider was the beneficiary of the major label machine, but after a couple of albums that ended and he became indie before you wanted to be. And today EVERYBODY is indie. Seems like only the brain-dead want what the majors purvey, akin to the network television of yore, made for the most people and appealing directly to few.<\/p>\n
So what is stardom today?<\/p>\n
Now let’s be clear, most acts posting to Spotify don’t deserve stardom, never mind failing to achieve it. But there is a certain level of artist…<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
So it’s not only the over the top obituaries that is weird, but the way Snider passed. In that just before he was involved in this altercation in Salt Lake City… Outside a hotel he got into it…<\/p>\n
Well, that was the original story. Which didn’t make complete sense, since the police ended up arresting Snider…<\/p>\n
More details have now come out, and you can read them here:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/tasteofcountry.com\/todd-snider-arrest-body-cam-footage-salt-lake\/<\/p>\n
But the point is this is not the average behavior of a nearly sixty year old troubadour. Who then cancels his tour, goes back home, enters the hospital and promptly dies.<\/p>\n
And 59… If you think that’s old, you haven’t reached that threshold. That’s positively young, musicians don’t tend to die before that unless it’s a case of misadventure, and they said that Snider died of…PNEUMONIA?<\/p>\n
So it was a double-whammy.<\/p>\n
I mean I hadn’t seen a Todd Snider show recently… I’m trying to think, I definitely met him and we interacted momentarily back in the MCA days…but when you’re a singer-songwriter and you’ve never opened for Taylor Swift, you not only don’t play arenas, you end up in tertiary venues where your hard core supports you. Usually you’re not making much more than a living. And you have to work to get paid.<\/p>\n
Now at this point…<\/p>\n
Just because you had a major label deal once, that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to make a living from your music thereafter. But the more you read the obituaries, the more you read the lyrical quotes, you had to admit it to yourself, this guy was GOOD!<\/p>\n
This was in the “New York Times,” from the song “Just In Case,” about a prenuptial agreement:<\/p>\n
“I can\u2019t love you enough<\/p>\n
But I also can\u2019t afford to lose half of my stuff.”<\/p>\n
You have to be smart to be funny. A tradition back in the sixties, humor has been excised from today’s material, everything’s so damn SERIOUS! Albeit in many cases laughable.<\/p>\n
From that same “Times” obituary:<\/p>\n
“‘A lot of this record is about how poor people sometimes cope with pain and hardship,’ Mr. Snider told The Times. ‘A little drugs here, a little sex here, a little denial there.'”<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/15\/arts\/music\/todd-snider-dead.html<\/p>\n
There’s more truth there than there is in a month of opinion pieces in major media.<\/p>\n
And then, “Variety” quoted from Snider’s HQ Aimless’s post:<\/p>\n
“May your hope always outweigh your doubt<\/p>\n
Until this old world finally punches you out<\/p>\n
May you always play your music<\/p>\n
Loud enough to wake up all of your neighbors<\/p>\n
Or may you play at least loud enough<\/p>\n
To always wake yourself up”<\/p>\n
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