Santana - Supernatural

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• Santana - Supernatural

Music reviews of Supernatural

Music Review: An ok "Carlos" Cd, but a poor "Santana" one.
Rating: 3 Stars

Carlos has always had his career split into two parts, one as a member and leader of the "Santana" band and one as a solo artist. The albums released using just the name "Santana" have always implied that they are ones with the entire Santana band (and nobody else) playing and singing the music, and although Carlos has changed the lineups in his band many times throughout the years, his band albums always have a distinct sound. In the past, whenever he would want to take a break and do something a little different and play with people outside of his band (such as John McLaughlin, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, The Fabulous Thuderbirds etc.) he would always label those projects as "Carlos Santana" albums. Carlos Santana's career has totalled 31 official albums, 24 being "Santana" albums and 7 being "Carlos Santana" albums, (Supernatural should have been the 8th Carlos solo project and not the 24th Santana album) so that makes the ratio around 3/1 in favour of "band" albums over solo projects.

Now, here's why i think the cd was deliberately mislabelled. You see, Carlos reunited with his original producer, Clive Davis for this cd, and in doing so he also switced record labels, leaving his short lived stay at Polydor to join Clive's "Arista" records. Arista would obviously want a "Santana" album to be Carlos's first release with them because the Carlos solo projects, while usually praised by critics, have never sold well. The Santana "band" was always the more successfull part of Carlos's two careers, but in the 90's the Santana "band" has stagnated, releasing only two albums of original material, one a studio cd and the other a live album, there were three other Santana releases in the 90's, but they weren't new band albums, they consisted of a solo project with his brother, a box set, and a previously unreleased live album recorded in 1968 (but that at least featured his far better original band).

The reason for the Santana band's lack of production has been somewhat to do with Carlos changing record labels twice in the decade, but it also had a lot to do with the fact that during this time many of the longtime core band members have changed, they lost or released longtime fan favorite vocalist Alex Ligertwood and replaced him with less talented singers since then, they've also gone through several drummers and bass players, all of whom fail miserably to capture the magic and feel of the "Santana Sound", they just don't have the skill or stage presence that guys from the previous bands did, players like Graham Lear (drums) and Dave Margen and Alphonso Johnson (bass) are sorely missed.

Anyway, Clive Davis and Arista wanted a hit, and what better way to get one than to target todays music buyers (mostly kids) by getting a bunch of todays most popular young artists on the cd with Carlos? it's a no brainer.

Now i'm not saying it's a bad cd, some of the songs are pretty good, the Rob Thomas song "Smooth" has been a huge hit, (10 weeks at #1 on Billboard and still there while i write this) and while somewhat over-rated it's an ok song, and the song with Everlast "Put Your Lights On" could do just as well if it gets a video and the same kind of promotion. There are a couple other good tracks , the instrumentals are always Santana's best tunes on his albums and there are a couple good ones here, but there are also some bad tunes on this cd (Lauryn Hill? Carlos what are you thinking!) but overall it's an ok cd, it's just not a "Santana" cd. All of Santana's current band members play on it but in minor roles, it's not a true Santana band effort and shouldn't have been labelled as one. I'm hoping with his next release Carlos gets back to his roots and does a real Santana album meaning just him and his band on all the tracks. I give Supernatural 3 out of 5 stars as a Carlos solo project, but 1 of out 5 if this is really supposed to be a "Santana Band" album and is representative of what the "new" Santana lineup will be putting out from now on.

My tip to Carlos, now that this cd was a big hit you should have some leverage (and cash) to work with, so how about doing a tour to make the old fans happy?, to start you could rehire Dave Walker and Alex Ligertwood on vocals, then get Graham back on the drums (or better yet Mike Shrieve if possible) get Tom Coster and Greg Rolie back on keyboards, Dave Brown, Alphonso or Dave Margen on Bass, and the percussion section is fine as long as Raul is there. That will restore the "real" Santana sound that has sadly been missing for the entire 1990's and part of the 80's.

Description of Supernatural

Classic Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Hard Rock & Metal
• Pop
• Rock