Santana

i'm starting this thread to see your opinions about Santana. i always hear, talented, brilliant, yadda yadda, all that jazz and some potatoes. but i digress.
i think that his playing is terrific but his music has just been squeezed into songs as filler. i don't like listening to him because his songs are just a series of unconnected licks.
what do you think?

He must be one of the most overrated players ever.

I dont think he's over rated at all. He's a better guitarist than most others out there now.
People just have a tendancy to judge him from his most recent music, and not the stuff he did before when he never collaberated with the whole MTV bunch.

I have a really, REALLY, I mean on the shelf for $5 of a tourist trap-type gas station in Atlanta (which is incidentaly how I got it) OLD cd of Santana's (can't remember the name, and I don't have my cds with me, but I think it had like a picture of the sun on it), and the playing is pretty kind of sloppy, and has that unconnected, "I'm just playing every lick I know in this key" feel. His latest playing is way cleaner, but still has that feeling that seems like he's just playing licks. His best time was in between those two periods. I don't think he's overrated very much, because besides him, how many NuLatin-ish guitarists do you know? (you guys probably know a lot of better players and I'm going to get flamed for my ignorance)

btw, I think I'm the most overrated guitarist on the planet.

Santana is really good at guitar, but all his songs are a bunch of unconnected licks. i hate listening to Santana because of that ****. he plays good solos but i sometimes mistake them for a few connected extended licks. i saw a DVD of Woodstock(the real one) a while ago and Santana was on there. his playing was great! and his drummer did a really cool drum solo. but anyway.
i don't like his current music.
he is talented.
but the songs are trash.

Santana's probably the most famous guitar player in the Jazz-rock idiom yet for me AL Di Meola, John Mclaughlin and Shaun Baxter kick his ass musically and technically (they play flamenco style acoustic stuff with Paco-de Lucia, God are they a talented trio). His stuff sounds a bit samey to me, I've never understood the big deal, just like with Clapton. Just cause these guys play slow stuff with bends and vibratos people think they're great guitar players but I've heard it all before. If i want soulful stuff I'd rather listen to Dave Gilmour (particularly on Pink Floyd's Division bell) or Alex Lifeson (from Rush, he can also shred like a maniac). I like the way Alex can play slow stuff with volume swells and pinch harmonics, that's so damn hard.

I hope you guys dont all come down on me for this, but this site is the only place I've run into where Santana seems to be over-rated. I know lots of guitar players at school who like his playing, and I've never had this discussion on another web site.
He may not be fast or play any actual rhythm, but I've always thought he had a really soulful, spiritual style. If Santana didn't play the way he does, no one would buy his stuff, I think anyway.
And I get the whole overrated thing that u10ajf said. My dad really digs Clapton and Santana and guys like that, always saying they were the best. They are good, but I think there are better song writers and players out there than that.

I think hes really overated personally. I like his music and hes good but hes NOT THAT GOOD! I dunno what to say about that.

he does play good soulful stuff. but not that much better than the next guy. he is really over-rated. he's good, but so are so many others. just unconnected licks, not even connected to any larger theme or anything.

He's just commercialized more than "the next guy". Thats why you hear so much about him being really good, while their are tonnes of people who could play better, who just arent presented to the record buyers as well.

I think you guys are being too critical of Santana. I've got a few santana LPs and I really enjoy listening to them. Particularly 'moonflower'. This LP is a brilliant listen and really has a cool aura surrounding it, songs like 'shes not there' are so involving, its just a load of people getting together and playing music that they love, which is in this case latin.

I dont listen to santana and say to myself 'is this a solo or a lick? whatever it is, its bad' I listen to it as a whole thing and get the latin feel, if you see the older sets of his, he has so many bongo players on set, and its like one big free-for-all, its absolutely stunning to watch.

Sure, he's hardly the best player out there, and I can fully admit that, but I find the music he writes always has a lasting effect, and his playing isn't as bad as you guys are making it out to be.

Just be a bit more open-minded to listen to it as a whole, because it definately isn't all about guitar solos.

Ha ha! Someone who sees!

Dont think of it as him being bad, thats not what is being said. What is being said is that hes not as good as he is toted. Hes still good at least for me i enjoy listening to him but he has nt had the impact on guitar that everyone seems he has, thats all.

The big problem I have w/Santana is that he's been putting out albums for close to 40yrs now and he sounds (from a technical standpoint) like he hasn't grown as a player at all. Doesn't he ever practice? (must be too busy designing womens footware).
If you want to hear Santana get blown to peices check out the album he did w/John McGlauchlin (sp?) in the 70's. Santana is way out of his league on that one.
On a positive note, the whole latin-rock thing w/the percussion & all is very cool, and he does put a lot of expression into his lines.

Originally posted by chris mood
Doesn't he ever practice? (must be too busy designing womens footware).

baaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lolololololoololol. Its funny cuz its true! :) :)

why are we ripping on Santana here? First off if you don't like his music or his playing don't listen to it.About the cd he did with Mc Laughlin in the 70's that's when he got "religious" and did this with him ( maybe they believed in the same thing but that's irrelevant here)maybe Santana can't play like Mc Laughlin but at the same token I don't think McLaughlin can do the things that Carlos can either.The point is why bother try to out do somebody else?.I like Santana but just my opinion here he is better in concert than in the studio and he even admits it.In today's music where things are flavor of the month,Santana's music or his playing isn't, you just have to give it a chance.

We're not really ripping on Santana, I dig the stuff he's done and I'm glad he did it. I think the concensus here is that people feel he's giving too much credit for his guitar playing (and yes I have seen him live 2x, plus lots of live footage).
About the album w/Mclaughlin, we'll he was just a fish out of water on that one. But I feel the same way w/Mclaughlin with Paco de Lucia & Dimeola, Paco plays circles around both of those guys, and plays the music the way it was meant to be played, Dimeola can hang, but Mclaughlin should have called out sick on that gig.
Just my opinion.

I dont think its that he's oner rated in the guitar community, its that he's over rated by people who dont play musical instruments. He's the only one around who playes lead like that, so they think he's the bast guitarist in the universe.
All well. I like his music just fine. I think its in a class by itself, its great!

well, that IS true. but there are guitarist who over-rate him. i mean, non-guitarists don't really understand it as much as a guitarist, so they'd be more prone to over-rating. and more non-guitarists over-rate Santana than guitarists. but there still are guitarists who over-rate him.

I don't think he's over rated. Where is it written that playing "a string of disconnected licks" is wrong or over rated or bad technique.