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A look at Carlos Santana's latest effort "All That I Am"
By: Chris Murino - ModernRock.com
December 4th 2005 11:33am
If you want to know how old someone is, ask them who Carlos Santana is. If they say, he’s that guy who plays guitar with pop artists like Rob Thomas and Michelle Branch, they’re probably pretty young. If they say he was one of the first guitarists to play Latin-tinged rock, filled with congas and tasteful, high-pitched guitar solos, they’re probably a bit older.
Santana’s recent album All That I Am, continues the trend of Carlos guesting on his own album. Producer Clive Davis finds some pop stars, sticks them in a studio with Santana, and allows them to play songs that sound nothing like classic Nirvana. Hey, it worked for one album. Supernatural, released in 1999, sold ten million copies and received 11 Grammy nominations. The critics, however, are not so fond of his latest effort.
“Again with Mary J. Blige, Steve Tyler and Michelle Branch, Santana proves that even endless high-sustain soloing cannot heal the generically lame,” write Steve Lowe of Guardian Unlimited. “The third time around is not a charm for Carlos Santana, who delivers his third straight star-studded, middle-of-the-road pop album in a row,” writes Stephen Thomas Erlewine of allmusic.com. “Even Santana sounds bored,” adds E! Online. And it isn’t as if it’s a fan-friendly album. “I think it sucks,” said Raymond Russell, Jr., 16, of Wooster, Ohio. “He sounds like a guest on his own album. It’s disgraceful.” Santana even admits this himself. “My role is to complement,” Santana told billboard.com. “I’ve been doing this since 1968.”
“His newer material utilizes the proven formula of a pop song, with a place set aside for the infamous Santana guitar solo, while other stars do the singing,” Russell added. Russell just started to listen to Santana a month ago, but now he is his favorite artist. He fell in love with Santana’s “beautiful guitar tone and style that cried out with emotion.”
Santana can improve his new albums by “sticking to one singer, improvising more, cutting down on the pop and rock like he used to,” says Russell.
Santana had better improve something. Although All That I Am opened at number 2 on the Billboard charts, it sold only 142,000 copies in its first week as opposed to 299,000 copies for Santana’s prior album, 2002’s Shaman.
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