Supernatural (Santana album)
Supernatural is the eighteenth studio album by American rock band Santana, released on June 15, 1999, on Arista Records. After Santana found themselves without a label in the mid-1990s, founding member and guitarist Carlos Santana began talks with Arista president Clive Davis, who had originally signed the group to Columbia Records in 1969. Santana and Davis worked with A&R man Pete Ganbarg, as Santana wanted to focus on pop and radio-friendly material. The album features collaborations with several contemporary guest artists, including Rob Thomas, Eric Clapton, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Lauryn Hill, Dave Matthews, Maná, and CeeLo Green.
Supernatural
Supernatural was a huge commercial success worldwide, generating renewed interest in Santana's music. It reached No. 1 in eleven countries, including the US for 12 non-consecutive weeks, where it is certified 15× platinum. The first of six singles from the album, "Smooth" featuring Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas, and co-written by Thomas and Itaal Shur, was a number one success worldwide and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 12 weeks. The next, "Maria Maria", featuring the Product G&B, was number one in the US for 10 weeks. Supernatural is Santana’s best-selling album to date, the best-selling album by a Hispanic artist in music history, and one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling an estimated 30 million copies worldwide.
At the 2000 Grammy Awards, Supernatural won nine Grammy Awards, breaking the record held by Michael Jackson's Thriller for the most honored album. These included Album of the Year, making Carlos the first Hispanic to win it, and Best Rock Album. Santana won eight of these, tying Jackson's record for the most awards in one night. Santana also won three Latin Grammy Awards including Record of the Year.[1]
Background[edit]
After Santana's record deal with Columbia Records came to an end in 1991, the band's two subsequent albums for Polydor/Island, Milagro (1992) and Sacred Fire: Live in South America (1993), failed to attract strong sales and chart positions. Founder member and guitarist Carlos Santana felt the label were not giving the band any "traction and acceleration".[2] In October 1996, he met Island founder Chris Blackwell in New York City where he asked for his release. Santana told Blackwell that he had "a masterpiece" album in him, but felt Island was not the right label for such plans. Blackwell subsequently travelled to Santana's home in Sausalito, California in an attempt to change the guitarist's mind, but Santana persisted and he was released from the label without paying compensation for the early termination.[3]
Santana, along with band manager Greg DiGiovine and attorney John Branca, approached several labels, but they struggled to find one suitable and the guitarist recalled that some considered him too old.[4] In 1995, he was invited to participate in a documentary about Arista founder Clive Davis, who first signed the band to Columbia in 1969. Santana, with encouragement from his wife, approached Davis about the possibility of signing with Arista.[2][5] Eventually Santana, DiGiovine and Branca scored interest from three labels: Arista, EMI, and Tommy Boy; the three were most interested in EMI, however, as they were willing to pay as much as four times as much money than the others. In early 1997, Santana entered the studio to start on Supernatural while the contract was being finalized, but he soon had second thoughts as he recognised Davis' ability to generate hit records. After the contract was scrapped in May 1997, Santana reconnected with Davis and later said he "Didn't rub it in my face. He said the company was still interested." However, Davis needed to see if the band were still a commercially viable attraction, so Santana invited him to attend the band's upcoming concert at Radio City Music Hall in July, which featured a new line-up of the group. Davis was impressed, and offered to sign the band.[4][5]
Davis agreed to sign Santana on the condition that he have some creative input. This did not bother the guitarist, as he felt "safe" with Davis and knew he would not be told to play anything "crass."[4][5] Santana complied and expressed his desire to produce more radio-friendly songs with strong melodies and lyrics that appealed to a broad audience. He convinced Davis that he "wasn't stuck in the '60s; I was adaptable to these times",[6] and cited Miles Davis and John Coltrane as artists who had successful changes in musical direction towards pop in their later careers.[5] Davis wanted Supernatural to surpass the sales of the band's best selling album, Abraxas (1970), their second, by which time had sold over 4 million copies in the US.[6] Davis wanted half the album to be "vintage Santana" in the style of their early hit song "Oye Como Va", and the other to be "the most natural" collaborations of "contemporary influences that Carlos was very much feeling." He found the task of contacting potential artists to collaborate with him particularly exciting.[4][6] Santana maintained that Supernatural was never meant to be "star-studded" at first, "but the songs really dictated different singers and different musicians."[7] The album was initially titled Mumbo Jumbo, but it was changed shortly before its release.[5] Davis threw a release party for the album at the Boathouse restaurant in New York City on June 1, 1999.[2]
Songs[edit]
"The Calling" features guitarist Eric Clapton, who had attended the 1999 Grammy Awards ceremony which featured Santana performing with Lauryn Hill and asked Santana to call him if there was room for him on a future Santana track.[7]
"Love of My Life" is a reworking of the third movement of Brahms’ Symphony No.3 in F major, which Carlos Santana called a "glorious piece of music".[8][9]
Commercial performance[edit]
The album is one of the best-selling albums in the world, and has sold over 30 million copies worldwide,[14] with 11.8 million copies sold in the United States alone.[15] It is the best-selling album by a Hispanic artist,[16] peaking at number one in many countries.
According to the Guinness World Records in 2005, it was the band's first album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200 since Santana III in 1971, making it the longest gap between two number one albums, 28 years in total.[16]
Arista had planned for an initial shipment of 125,000 copies, but the high level of interest in the album through word of mouth caused this to rise to 210,000. By the first week of June 1999, after the label issued a sample album to promoters, this number rose to 350,000.[6] The album debuted at number 19 on the US Billboard 200 and eventually peaked at number one in October 1999, selling 169,000 copies that week, it would increase its sales even more in the following weeks, selling 183,000 and 199,000 on its first three weeks atop. Its highest sale came in year's final week when it sold 527,000 copies. Its sales would still stay in stratosphere after the Christmas holiday season, selling 583,000 copies after winning nine Grammy Awards in a night, it barely dropped in sales, selling again another monstrous 441,000 copies. Its last of 12 non-consecutive weeks at number one would still see huge sales, 307,000 copies that week, it later was replaced by NSYNC's No Strings Attached after selling 2.4 million copies in a week. It also debuted and peaked at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart.[17] However, it was removed from the chart the following week after Billboard determined that the album did not meet the linguistic requirement of having at least 50% of its tracks recorded in Spanish.[18] It was ranked on Billboard's top 200 albums of the decade as the ninth best-selling album of the 2000s.[19]
In Australia, the album debuted at number 48 and would peak at number one on March 6, 2000. In the UK, the album peaked at number one for two weeks starting on April 1, 2000.
Singles[edit]
Copies of the first single, "Smooth", had been leaked prior to the intended June 15 radio release date and were picked up by some radio stations which began to air the song in late May.[6][20] "Smooth" featured Rob Thomas on vocals, and peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks while it went to No. 3 in the UK and No. 4 in Australia. The next two singles were "Put Your Lights On" and "Maria Maria"; the former song was serviced to rock radio on August 24, 1999,[21] while the latter was added to urban radio on September 14, 1999.[22] "Maria Maria" peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks, No. 6 in the UK and No. 49 in Australia while "Put Your Lights On" peaked at No. 18 on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, No. 97 in the UK, and was a minor hit in Australia at No. 32. The fourth single, "Corazón Espinado" featuring Maná, was released on May 30, 2000,[23] was a top-10 hit in Spain. On August 7, 2000, "Love of My Life" was serviced to US hot and modern adult contemporary radio.[24]