Santana's "Supernatural" Success

11/14/99

Aging rockers everywhere must be drooling. The unexpected success of Carlos Santana's latest aptly-titled album Supernatural has proven to the music world that artists over 50 can still produce a number one album. The success of this release comes at a time when most of the music industry had written Santana off as an over the hill guitarist with an out of date sense of style, and a penchant for discussing everyday experiences in sweeping spiritual terms.
Thankfully, not everyone was ready to give up on Carlos yet. Clive Davis shared Santana's vision, and signed the veteran to Arista Records (a label which often focuses on signing older artists), almost 30 years after Davis first signed the young Latin guitarist to Columbia Records. The concept the first recording Santana would make for Arista was one familiar to Davis (who co-produced the effort); pair the guitarist up with several popular guest stars, to try and introduce him to a younger audience. Arista certainly spared no expense in the effort; appearances by Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20), Everlast, Lauryn Hill, Dave Matthews, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Eric Clapton, and others, ensured that the recording would receive significantly higher visibility than a typical Santana release. But no one, perhaps not even Santana himself, imagined just how successful Supernatural would be.
Released on June 15th, 1999, Supernatural didn't actually top the pop charts until the week ending October 17th, 1999; a week that saw 170,000 copies of the album being sold. Supernatural stayed at the top of the pop charts for three full weeks, perched above albums by pop music darlings like The Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey and Britney Spears. Much of the reason behind album's sales is being credited to the huge success of the single "Smooth" (a collaboration with Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas), a tune which Santana described as "New York, Spanish Harlem.. that spirit of Spanish Harlem" in an interview with CD Now.
Whether the album's success translates into a new generation of listeners being turned on to the music of Santana remains to be seen. While the guitarist's body of work has been notorious uneven, there is certainly a vast amount of highly accessible music in the Santana catalogue that could be as marketable as anything on Supernatural. No plans have as of yet been announced for any re-issue projects.