You know who pisses me off?
Carlos Santana.
No, I'm not racist, and I don't hold any grudges against the Latino community. I just fail to see the appeal of the guy. Most of the songs that get radio airplay are the ones that he has collaborated with other, more mainstream artists. 97 percent of those songs were written by the collaborating artist. Since he didn't write them, and he doesn't sing, that just makes him the Guitar Player. For this the guy sells 25 million albums?
The fact is, if you didn't tell me it was Santana, I wouldn't know. I would just figure that Rob Thomas or Michelle Branch or Aerosmith put out a new single. Yeah, maybe the song has a bit of an extended guitar solo, but I grew up in the 80's; all the songs had extended guitar solos.
My point is that I fail to see what he brings to the occasion. He can be replaced by any studio guitarist on the track and it would not make a lick of a difference. ( Like how I used "lick" & "track"? I'm a musical linguistic genius!) Is it because he's Latino? I don't think so, but there has to be something about the guy, something I'm missing out on. Does he have all his fingers? Or does he play with his feet? There's got to be some freak-show quality or something.
Someone please explain it to me.
Later.
P.S. (The Title means "Piece of Crap" in Spanish. Clever, eh?)
Ok here you go...santana as a guitarist is very cool...but don't judge a once great artist by his later day sins...go back and listen to older Santana...Black Magic Women ring a bell??..The guy can play..he will take latin sounds and mix them with rock quitar techniques...a Santana song has a distinct sound to the guitar playing..he can be replaced by a studio player just about as easily as Gene Simmons can be replaced in Kiss...find some of the stuff he didn't do with the duet theme.Some of the intsrumental stuff is amazing! Unfortunaly he did the one album that sold like a bajillion copies and is now hounded by his record company to do it again. In this day and age there is no room for a true Sanatana record on the charts. Long epic solos...he just has a feel to his playing. Is he the greatest gutar player ever?...some people might think so but I think Clapton, Jimi, Robert Johnson,Dicky Betts,Trey Anasatsio, B.B. King and others might have something to say about it...but he is a true rock original and pioneer...
ReplyDeleteStill, he's just a glorified studio player.
ReplyDeleteSo what if he did some great shit back in the day? His only hope at success now is to cling on to the coattails of vocalists, and hope to keep riding that wave of nostalgia.
As for his sound, that's a whole other rant. My ears my not be tuned to the intricacies of guitar like they should be, but I can tell when every single track sounds exactly the same. It's like he only knows one solo, he just plays it at varying speeds.
The reason there is no room for a Santana album on the charts is because if you piled that much more crap on top of the shit that's already there the entire music industry would collapse.