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More Songs For The Daily Planet

After casting a satirical gaze on the industry hype machine with his 1994 song, "Talking Seattle Grunge-Rock Blues," this alt-country joker proves he still has some ammunition left in his pot-shot cannon.

The title track of Happy to Be Here (RealAudio excerpt) finds singer-songwriter Snider lining up his crosshairs on the vapidity of television and the absurdity of contemporary culture — all while humanly beaming a ray of hope across the shadows cast by the indignities of everyday life.

"Mostly it's all scandal TV these days/ That's where the real money must fall/ Down from the smog of some Hollywood haze/ I'm just happy to be here at all," he muses. "Happy to be here to see how it goes/ When everything blows into space."

After two albums on MCA's country division, smarty-pants Snider proved to be a little too clever for country radio, and so he's turned up on the indie label Oh Boy, which was founded by John Prine, another exile from the main streets of Nashville. The move apparently has been a fortuitous one; befitting its title, Happy to Be Here is Snider's best album yet.

He has largely ditched the Mellen-campy rousing roots-rock of his earlier work for a more spare, sincere sound evidenced by tracks such as "All My Life," which features simply his voice, an acoustic guitar, harmonica and a subtle Hammond organ. In his slight nasal twang, Snider softly sings, "I don't mind sometimes not talking/ Sometimes there ain't a thing to say/ Anyway I know what you're thinking/ And I kinda like it when you think that way." Along with tracks such as "Long Year," "Lonely Girl" and "Missing You" (RealAudio excerpt) one hears the kind of quiet simplicity that marks the best work of Steve Earle (whose voice Snider's is reminiscent of).

While it's been obvious from the start that Snider is an excellent songwriter, his earlier albums were weighed down by too many instruments and, occasionally, some humor that sounded forced. On Happy to Be Here, Snider's not only stripped down the production and instrumentation, he's peeled away the lyrical layers that sometimes obscured his deeper, more resonant feelings.

A good example is evidenced on "Missing You," where he confesses, "I feel like missing you today/ I ain't lettin' nobody stand in my way/ I'm gonna pull down these shades/ And play some old songs." And with the intimacy he conveys throughout this record, it feels like you're sitting in his living room while he performs those songs just for you.

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