Search - Santana :: Moonflower

The last good Santana album

finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 05/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Quick! Name me one difference between these allegedly live versions of "Carnival", "Let the Children Play", "Jugando" and their original versions! Now, they do rule, and they do represent some of Santana's best work in the pop, Latin, and jazz fields, so I won't complain. So now that your little pop quiz is out of the way, useful background info you probably already know. Half of this album was recorded in the studio, and includes songs such as a great hit cover of the Zombies' "She's Not There" (by the way, Santana doing the Zombies? How random is THAT?), mediocre late-'70s soul like "I'll Be Waiting" (AKA "I'll Be Around" with Latin guitar), and random instrumentals such as the smooooth "Dawn/Go Within" and the much funkier "Zulu", which is quite a cool lil' tune. But I assume the reason anyone REALLY bought this was because of the live segments (not LP, because the studio and live material are interspersed amongst each other weirdly and confusingly), seeing this was Santana's first live release in the States and all. The energetic version of "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen" is ace, of course, because it's hard to screw up Santana's famous version of that song. "Dance Sister Dance", despite having utterly stupid lyrics even by Santana standards (they chant the song's title a billion thousand times or so), has Santana Guitar Mojoness all over it. And it's got multiple parts, which is cool. AND Santana shows us just how long he can sustain notes. Damn long time, it turns out. "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)" is still one of the most beautiful guitar solos in history, "Soul Sacrifice" is still the most intense and best instrumental in Santana's catalog, and "Touissant L'Overture" still simply rules in its melodramatic awesomeness. In fact, I am of the opinion that it is the best Santana song in history. Yes, even better than "Oye Como Va". Yes, even better than "Open Invitation", and who can resist that pop-metal nugget? Everyone, that's who. And did you know that Santana was a year away from that tripe when they released this? Greed does very bad things to people. So, the downside is that the studio work is really disappointing, other than "She's Not There" and "Zulu" - "Flor D'Luna" essentially is just "Black Magic Woman", "El Morocco" is supposed to be crushing, butt-kicking rock, and between you and me Santana sucks at crushing, butt-kicking rock (as the world would soon learn the hard way), and "Transcendance" (an unfunny pun, or a spelling error?) is just meandering fusion with an irritatingly smooth vocal. Still, when I listen to this and think of future albums, I have to wonder where it all went wrong. Whatever happened, this is probably where you should get off the boat with Santana, because things were about to get really bad, really fast."