Search - Santana :: Beyond Appearances

Another weak pop album from the 1980's

kireviewer | Sunnyvale, Ca United States | 07/08/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This album came out in 1985, during Santana's pop period. It consists of 11 songs ranging from 3 to 5 minutes long. It is 44 minutes long. Sound quality is good but not excellent.



Most of the songs are basic pop tunes with Latin percussion and Santana's trademark guitar thrown in. Some songs are fairly bad, like Breaking Our and Say It Again.



This album was produced by Val Garay, who also wrote some of the songs. Garay's big claim to fame was producing Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes. It has the pop sound of mid-eighties, with a lot of overblown synthersizers. (I like synthesizers, but just like everything, there are those who will overdo them and ruin it for everyone).



Beside the overabundance of synthesizers, the sound is a more stripped down rock style. It doesn't have any of the lush, rich or intricate sounds of the early Santana works.



The vocals on this CD are done by Greg Walker who had been with Santana off and on since 1974. He basically replaced Greg Rolle on vocals, when Rolle left to form Journey. I never really liked his vocal style and never thought that if fit well with Santana's music. I think he is especially grating on this CD.



The CD features both the Chester Thompsons. Chester C Thompson is a drummer who has also been in Genesis, when Phil Collins moved to doing moslty vocals. He also played with Frank Zappa (singing BeBop Tango) and toured in Steve Hackett's all star band. Chester D Thompson is a keyboard player who has been with Tower of Power. David Sancious is also on Keyboards.



There are some good tracks on this CD. Brotherhood is a nice boisterous African jaunt and Written in Sand is soulful blues tune.



After releasing the first three classic albums in the late sixties, early seventies, Santana started to drift towards jazz. The group got really heavy into jazz fusion by the fifth album (Welcome). Eventually, Santana returned to the classic sound with Amigos, but with a little pop thrown in. In 1977, with Festival, the group went pop and stayed throughout the eighties. Santana put out a number of bad albums in that time period (I think that Havana Moon was the only one to be somewhat good).



During the eighties, most of Santana's hits were covers over other songs, like Stormy, and Well Alright. But, come to think of it, Santana has always done well with covers. The band's first big hit was Black Magic Woman, which was from Fleetwood Mac and Oye Como Va, which was a popular song in the Latin community.



Santana made a serious come back in 1990 with Spirits Dancing in the Flesh, and again in 1999 with Supernatural."

Short and to the point

John Alapick | Wilkes-Barre, PA United States | 01/10/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Beyond Appearances is not a good Santana album. It is dominated by synthesizers and drum machines. "Brotherhood" and the instrumental "Touchdown Raiders" are the only good songs on the album. The rest of the album plays like a soundtrack to a bad `80s movie. Two stars for the two good tracks and Carlos' superb guitar playing. Buy it only to complete your Santana collection."