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The Last Great Single

In October 2024, the last great Rock & Roll single turned 25 years old. “Smooth,” the mega-hit song by Carlos Santana featuring Rob Thomas, covered the globe in 1999. This was before internet use impacted music via streaming, Napster, and the like as a controlling element of the world’s pop charts, seemingly leaving the measurement of music popularity in shards. It was a time when if an artist had a number-one song, it meant something.

 

Although the US record ranks had been navigated as far back as the mid 1930’s, (when trade magazine Billboard established “the charts”), the ’90s would be the last decade where the mainstream music levels would have a more singular meaning and understanding. Depending on where you hunt, today’s music world has a plurality of categories, virtual sites, vast access criteria (such as virtual clicks), and vague ownership of what is currently called “the charts.”  Back in 1999, it was still pretty much determined by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reporting of record sales from distributors across the land…and promoted by Casey Kasem on his weekly national radio show. This positions “Smooth” as being the last big GREAT single of a bygone era.

Carlos Santana had been working with younger artists as a means of helping his relevance in that period’s music scene. Indeed, Carlos had not been on the singles charts since 1982. For his upcoming album project (to be called Supernatural) Arista Records’ top guy, Clive Davis, strategically recruited current “hot” artists Lauryn Hill, Dave Matthews, and vocalist Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty to be part of the Santana “comeback.”

The song had been presented to Santana by  “acid jazz” musician Itaal Shur, but Carlos didn’t fancy the lyrics. Knowing that he would do “something vocally” with Thomas, he turned to the 27-year-old and asked him to take a swing at a new set of words.

“To really appreciate ‘Smooth,’ you have to embrace how cheesy it is,” Thomas told the New York Times earlier this year, “It’s right in your face.” Indeed, the words are sexy but personal and Thomas has been right out front as to who they were aimed at: his wife, Marisol Maldonado. “There has always been something magical about our relationship. We think of ourselves as a great love story.” He’s indicated that his Queens-born Puerto Rican better half  (that’s where the line “Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa” came from) worked as his muse for the song’s Latin flavor.

But Carlos Santana went a step further into the ingredients: “Nearly every song on Supernatural was a guajira, and Afro-Cuban rhythm, put together to make lovers get it on.” Known for its slinking piano-driven sound, Santana explains, “There’s nothing more sensuous or delicious than a guajira. It drives women crazy.

If that’s true, then it affected more than just women, as “Smooth” proved to be an international smash, hitting number one in October 1999 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for 12 consecutive weeks (and going #1 in 10 other countries). It would earn the distinction of being the final #1 of the 1990s and the first #1 hit of the 2000s, the only song to achieve such a feat over two different centuries. For those who keep score, at its peak, “Smooth” has been noted to have been played daily 1.8 million times on world radio, reaching an estimated audience of 13.2 billion.

Opening with a set of drum triplets, the song’s Am key jumps at the listener with a percussion ballet of congas, timbales, cowbell, and guiro, all traditional Latin instruments. But Santana encouraged the Times interviewer NOT to call itLatin.” “The arrangement of ‘Smooth’ has instruments widely associated with Latin music. ‘Latin’ is a word that came from Hollywood, for Latin lovers like Fernando Lamas and Cesar Romero. It’s just African rhythms. My music is 90% African.” But no doubt, when Santana plays his guitar solos on “Smooth,” no one would argue that was pure power Rock & Roll.

“Smooth” would win a truckload of Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Supernatural would receive the Album of the Year distinction.

Not knowing its influence would wane in just a few short years, Billboard ranked “Smooth” as the second-most-successful song ever to appear on Billboard’s Hot 100 60th Anniversary listing.

-Steve Valvano

Photo: Carlos Santana, 2005 (public domain)

 

4 comments on “The Last Great Single

  1. Ellen C Fagan

    Superb article! I had no idea that the last great charted single was a quarter century old…a poignant concept for sure. But “Smooth” is a perfect great single swan song.

  2. Steven Valvano

    Ellen, thanks for the kind words…It seemed that the world changed in a blink of an eye back then! -SV

  3. The article is solid but its underlying notion that something had to be a major chart hit to be considered a great single is questionable. There are plenty of great songs that weren’t big hits at the time of release (at least in the US) but over time established themselves as part of our cultural background radiation. Tempted (Squeeze), Just Like Heaven (The Cure), Island in the Sun (Weezer) and The Rising (Bruce Springsteen) to name a few.

  4. Steven Valvano

    Thanks for your kind words, Don…

    A “hit” as we know it is only a distinction of popularity in a commercial sense. (Not saying great songs are not great unless it’s a “hit”). So, I am in agreement with your concept…

    That is, how many times have we seen a song become popular well after the charts can capture it? …Best example is “Yesterday” in the UK…NEVER released as a Beatles single in UK, never a “hit” per se in the charts. Is there anyone who won’t call this a GREAT song?……Hell, it’s a CLASSIC! -SV

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