Man's gotta ruin my time, FAM, what you been kidding me, what, doin that stuff, doin that strut, walk around town but you can't turn up...Da West Staines Massive, innit!
Legendary. Part of the Holy Trinity of Santana albums: - Santana (1969) - Abraxas (1970) - Santana III (1971) **All respect and admiration is due.
Sounds similar to street band music you'd hear on any street corner in Mexico or Central America. The Afro-Cuban jazz produces some notable moments but nothing sublime imo. I'm more partial to swing jazz, bossa nova, etc. It may just be cultural, but I can't help but feeling a bit meh about this after first listen. May just need more time to sink in. I definitely preferred the latter half of this album, roughly -- everything from "Candela" onward.
I'm not the biggest New Wave fun but this is one of the strongest debut albums of all time. Listenable from start to finish. Deliberating between 4/5 and the thing that kept it from a perfect score for me was I felt that I was losing of the production quality (synths-pops) from listening to it in digital vs. vinyl-stereo. Also, hearing this in the 2020s, the fact that some of these songs have been so co-opted by mass media (e.g. Circuit City's "Just What I Needed ad campaign) that it has added a kitschy feel to it. Neither of those previous nits are the fault of The Cars and, to be fair, most music released around the 80s hasn't aged particularly well. Select tracks on here still feel very fresh and innovative. I'm just missing that indescribable 'wow' factor for a perfect score as many of the singles on here have been played to death on the radio. Still, I'm very impressed with this album in its totality.