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Santana - Greatest Hits CD (album) cover

GREATEST HITS

Santana

 

Jazz Rock/Fusion

2.80 | 36 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
2 stars A bird in the hand. . .

Despite the fact that this collection was released in 1974, it only contains selected tracks from Santana's first two albums, plus one track "Everybody's everything" from the third. With the compilation clocking in at a measly 34½ minutes, the record company were not exactly falling over themselves in their generosity, even in the days of the LP record.

The tracks selected are the those which were deemed to be radio friendly, the aforementioned "Everybody's everything" falling neatly into this category, but remaining for me the weakest track on the third album. With the majority of the tracks running to around 3 minutes, there's little or no room for the more interesting (especially from a prog perspective) Santana songs.

A number of the tracks are founded on the Latin percussion rhythms which the band favoured, including "Jingo", "Oye como va", and "se a cabo". These tend not to be the ones which appeal to my ear, and as such collecting them in this way is rather lost on me.

This early "Greatest hits" package demonstrated that either the record company did not have much faith in Santana's long term prospects (is there significance in the bird in the hand illustration on the sleeve?), or that they were keen to cash in on their developing reputation, probably more the latter than the former.

Those who already had the first two albums must have been somewhat bemused however by the half hearted nature of this product.

Easy Livin | 2/5 |

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