Clem Snide, &Quot;Your Favorite Music&Quot;

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By Newsweek Editors

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With their unfortunate name and tired baby-blue tuxedo look, you might expect New York-based Clem Snide to be the pathetic last gasp of the breathtakingly lame retro-ironic lounge revival. But the quartet actually delivers sweetly sad, often stately music, and they're deserving of a better name--and more somber clothing.

The CD opens with a mournful cello cautiously working its way up through what sounds partly like an orchestra tuning, partly like a jammed car horn. "The Dairy Queen" evolves into a slow, gorgeous country folk ballad about "a road paved with liver and onions." The title track is a gently hopeful love ballad to a particularly depressive someone. "Your favorite music well it just makes you sad, but you like it, 'cause you feel special that way," read the lyrics. "I can't teach you to learn to love yourself, but here's a sad song that I wrote for no one else." A few too many of the tracks are similarly low key laments, like a somewhat rougher version of the Cowboy Junkies. "I Love the Unknown," is one of the only moments on the CD with any appreciable energy. It's hardly a rocker, but the band does at least prove that they can rise above the level of a near-stupor. That's an impression that is all but undone with the closing tune, an ultra low-energy cover of Richie Valens's teen love classic "Donna," which goes beyond lullaby to pure soporific.

While the CD is a perhaps overly repetitive, Clem Snide does come across as entirely sincere. "Your Favorite Songs" is not overwhelming, but it is a surprisingly pleasant minor gem.

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