Customer Reviews

That Was Me: The Best of Todd Snider 1994-1998

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Todd's debut effort and his two follow-ups on MCA were uneven, with "Planet" being brilliant, "Step Right Up" being good, and "Viva Satellite" coming off as largely forgettable. This new compilation of old material comes pretty close to skimming the best songs of all three. I'd say that if you buy this, you won't need the individual discs. If you already have the first three albums, or at least the first two, you won't need this effort, either. His later "Oh Boy" releases are all worthy in different ways, with "Near Truths and Hotel Rooms" probably being the most satisfying overall.

Another reviewer complained that this wasn't really "the best of" Todd Snider's work, since it doesn't include songs such as "Vinyl Records" and "Statistician's Blues," et al. I agree that those are great songs, but they were released on John Prine's independently owned Oh Boy! label, not on the MCA-Universal mega-conglomerate, which is the company that put out this particular collection. Yeah, it would be great to have all of Snider's "best" work on one collection, but I for one am rather glad that Universal doesn't own Oh Boy! so that that is not possible... But if you want to check out Snider's early work, from the albums he put out in the mid-to-late 1990s, this is a fine single-CD option.

It's true that these are all great songs, but what you should be doing is buying every single Todd Snider album, not this Greatest Hits stuff. There's no reason to but a greatest hits album when Snider has never recorded a bad song in his career.

I first saw Todd Snider on Austin City Limits. I have been a fan every since. This cd is a must!

A solid collection that displays the range of Snider's music while offering classics like Talkin' Seattle Blues. A good first disk for those looking to add some Todd Snider to their collection--which, if you have made it this far researching the relatively obscure artist--you should.

A great review of Todd's work. Most songs have a bit of a twist from the norm. Good stuff!!

This is a nice collection of songs and styles. I really like all of it. It is my first Todd Snider album but it won't be my last!

Todd Snider is a great folky singer/songwriter hippie who sounds like he'd have been perfect for the 1960's. He's definitely unique in today's music scene. He writes really good songs and this CD gives a nice brief overview of some of his best songs over the 5 years. And at a great price too!

For the most part, these are good roots-y Americana folk/country songs for the modern times. He's hilarious as far as writers go. If he were an author, he'd be one of those quirky guys who have a cult following. I enjoyed most of the songs on here a lot. There were only one or two which I didn't care for - and that's pretty good at 18 songs.

If you like cool, unique, weird, talented singer/songwriters, Todd Snider's the guy for you. This is a good introduction to some of his earlier stuff. I would definitely recommend picking up his more recent stuff too.

I significantly agree with the previous review. If you've bought Todd Snider's later CDs, this would be a good introduction to his earlier material (especially since it contains cuts from his "Viva Satellite" CD which is hard to find). Of course, I would suggest that you get his "Songs From the Daily Planet" CD as that is a classic. This CD contains songs from his first three CDs plus a previously unreleased cover version of Jimmy Buffett's "Margartaville" (sung significantly different than how the Parrothead does it).

I'm only disappointed because the above cover version is the only new thing for the fans who have all of his CDs. I'm sure there had to be some more unreleased material out there that could have been added as Todd is known for his cover versions in his live shows. Even if it meant removing a studio track or two, I think you could have a perfect mix of introducing newbies while satisfying the "oldbies".

Another nit is that the liner notes are extremely hard to read that I actually scanned a few of the pages to blow them up to read (no joke). But all-in-all, it is a decent purchase to make.

If you are like me, any artist that you really really love, chances are you have every cd/album that this artist ever realeased. And say 10 years or so down the road, this artist comes out with a "Best of" or "greatest hits" cd. You are curious to see what selections were put on it, and except for the one or two cover songs, or maybe a NEW song,(they do that in the hopes of that big fan will buy it for that one or two songs he/she may not have)you say to yourself "THAT IS NOT THE BEST OF" ! Well, when I saw Todd's selections on his "BEST OF CD", I was disapointed. Just to name a few songs that were left off are as follows: "I believe"-"broke"-"vinyl records"-"beer run"-"alot more"-"new connection"-"statistician's blues"- and one that I found online was a song he did called "Plastic girl". If you can find that one or any of the above mentioned songs you will see what I mean. If you like todd's music, don't skimp on this guy. Get all his cd's, you won't ever regret it. Thanks for listening.