Santana - commercial ho or drooling idiot?

I like the albums Santana and Abraxas. Like most revivials Santanas has been utter comercial ho'dom. Also like most latin music of the past 10-15 years completely over produced. Bu the early albums are really edgy phycadelic latin rock or rock/Salsa fusion. Maybe a bit too much guitar noodling wankery even then but enjoyable none the less.

Commercial ho'dom, beautiful, file next to wank-chops.

Ah yes Santana: album with that drawing of woman/lion morphing = classic (1st album?), funky as shit with wank/chops and the massive Soul Sacrifice (erm...that's the title I remember). Also classic: 'Soul Sacrifice' live at Woodsuck. Santana's eyes squinting to keep the sun exploding in his head (oh, bad timed acid- drop alert), the drummer plays the drum-solo to end all drum-solo's, band crash in with mega-riff...everybody cheers.

After that he found religion and start soloing for Vishnu or something like that = dud.

Recent come-back = beyond dud.

I love Santanas voice and guitar work. But he is entering into whoredom . Working with Rob Thomas make me vomit .

You must give him credit for planting and nurturing the seeds of what would one day become . . . Journey.

Go ahead, ask me if I'm kidding.

Any thoughts on Gregg Rollie-era Journy vs. Steve Perry-era Journey?

Santana started as a latin punk band. Their first album is so monotonous, all the songs are played with only two chords at different pitches. What happened is that nobody else before did what they did. They played totally stoned at Woodstock. But again because their sound was unique, they prevailed.

Then they evolved. Santana III was the best of the original band. On Caravanserai, Welcome and Borboletta Santana went jazz, and these were IMO the BEST albums, very creative. Love Devotion Surrender rules. Santana improvises at his best, although he can't cope with Mr. McLaughlin's out-of-this-world speed.

Then they tried a return to basics and it was good. Amigos and Moonflower stand up as total power, playing furiously live. Even Santana's guitars (Gibsons and the Yamaha SGB3000 with the metal plaque underneath the bridge for sustain) were top sound.

But here the success ends. Santana turned into commercial music big time. And because his career was sinking down, he opted to become a "latin guru". He's so desperate to be acknowledged as one of the "greats". Just read his current interviews, he does not cease to mention how he was buddy buddy with Coltrane, Shorter, etc. etc. Compare this with his straight interview in Guitar Player back in 1977. I think that when he was with Sri Chinmoy he was more down to earth, nowadays he's a total ho. How sad.