1

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.

If only Todd Snider was alive to see them.

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.

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."

"You know just the other morning I was hanging around in my house
I had that new book with pictures of Madonna naked, I was checking it out
Just then a friend of mine came through the door
Said she'd never picked me for a scumbag before
She said she didn't ever want to see me anymore
And I still don't know why

I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm an alright guy"

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.

But that's kind of my point. Remember how big Madonna was back then?

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.

But not Todd Snider.

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.

So what is stardom today?

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...

2

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...

Well, that was the original story. Which didn't make complete sense, since the police ended up arresting Snider...

More details have now come out, and you can read them here:

https://tasteofcountry.com/todd-snider-arrest-body-cam-footage-salt-lake/

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.

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?

So it was a double-whammy.

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.

Now at this point...

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!

This was in the "New York Times," from the song "Just In Case," about a prenuptial agreement:

"I can’t love you enough
But I also can’t afford to lose half of my stuff."

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.

From that same "Times" obituary:

"'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.'"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/arts/music/todd-snider-dead.html

There's more truth there than there is in a month of opinion pieces in major media.

And then, "Variety" quoted from Snider's HQ Aimless's post:

"May your hope always outweigh your doubt
Until this old world finally punches you out
May you always play your music
Loud enough to wake up all of your neighbors
Or may you play at least loud enough
To always wake yourself up"

https://www.instagram.com/p/DRFN5XnEXKH/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=eacce54d-bdc7-4cd6-9eaf-bab77c79c7aa

This is not the boomers who sold their souls for the almighty dollar in the eighties. This is not about gated communities and private jets. This is the rock and roll ethos, which has been snuffed out. The other, who doesn't fit in and knows it, but is unwilling to compromise.

3

Where does Todd Snider end up in history? Will be be like Nick Drake, discovered and kept alive after he dies or...will he just fade away and not radiate.

But one thing is for sure, we live in a weird era... Where nobody gets universal purchase on the public's attention, never mind the zeitgeist.

But, sans that major label push... You can live your whole live on the outskirts, as part of the sideshow.

Now Todd put out some records on John Prine's label "Oh Boy," but don't confuse his status with that of the label owner. John Prine had SEVEN major label albums before he went independent. And he got a ton of ink when the rock press was alive and thriving. And Bonnie Raitt made one of his songs a standard. And then there's "Hello In There" which Bette Midler amplified and..

Todd Snider had none of this mindshare.

So today the acts with mindshare are either old, riding on the coattails of their major success decades ago, or the few pushed by the major labels... As for the rest...

It's the great unwashed. Good luck trying to get ahead.

And, once again, most don't deserve the notice.

And you put out records and have fans but that does not mean you're rich, that your problems are solved. Snider got addicted to Oxycontin...

So... Not only do the acts who deserve it not get attention, many acts don't even get started, or give up early. The road is fraught with obstacles. And the fault is not streaming, that's a bogeyman, it's the impossibility of gaining attention, with not only musicians and influencers but news outlets and other sites competing for the eyes and ears of the audience.

Now if Todd Snider had just passed, and hadn't gotten obituaries in not only the big three, the NYT, WSJ and the WaPo, but elsewhere, it'd be no big deal. Sad for fans, not even a shrug from the mainstream. But these obits testified, AT LENGTH!

How come we can't give some of these acts this attention when they're still alive?

Then again a media push doesn't mean what it used to. Most of the articles are placed, they read as promotion. But there's only honesty in an obituary, where everybody agreed Todd Snider was a cut above.

I wish he'd known.

Because he was an ARIGHT GUY!

Like so many of us... We're misread, misunderstood, they want us to conform, but inside...

"I know I ain't perfect, but God knows I try
I think I'm an alright guy!"


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