"The Best of Santana" greatly expands on the band's original Greatest Hits package, which only covered the late 60s and early 70s. Filled to capacity with 16 songs, this collection is about as complete as one can hope for in a single volume. It starts out with early classic rock radio staples like "Black Magic Woman," "Evil Ways," "Oye Como Va," and the cover of the Zombies "She's not There." The disc then moves on to more recent Santana hits like the new wave-ish "Winning," and "Hold On" before returning to the early days for some excellent lengthy jams like "Dance Sister Dance" and "Soul Scrifice." The only thing missing is any material from Santana's recent commercial comeback. The disc gets extra credit for not adding on any inferior "new" material like a lot of such packages do.

Overall, an excellent one volume anthology from one of classic rock's brighter stars.

This cd represents some of Santana's finest songs, however, the guys who did the remastering/remixing should be fired! they cranked up the bass on every song and left almost no treble or any midrange at all, every song sounds muddy and flat as if you had placed a cardboard box between your ear and the speakers. If you're a new Santana fan do yourself a favour and just buy some of the original albums these tracks are from, in fact most of these tracks are on the 1995 box set called "Dance of the Rainbow Serpent", so spend a few more bucks and get that, then you'll only need about three or four other cd's to get the rest of the tracks from their original albums, all of which have better sound than this best of cd.

The Best of Santana released in 1998 served as a premonition something wonderful might happen to a long-careered(more than 30 years)latin rock superstar. Before buying this CD I had known Santana only through the hits Evil Ways and Black Magic Woman."Santana? It's the band which were big thirty years ago". That was the image I had toward Santana. I was wrong. The Best Of Santana told me Santana is a lot more than a collection of 70s hits.

The hits parade Evil Ways, Black Magic Woman and Oye Como Va is great of course. But Santana's allure does not end there. Samba Pa Ti is a great melancholic instrumental. Hold On a great pop music. Winning and All I Ever Wanted. Is It Santana? The band rocks hard! Winning is a very ironic title probably directed toward Neal Schon, who left Santana in 1971 and formed Journey. Europa became superhit in Japan holding the record of the biggest selling single by a non-Japanese artist. If you love Supernatural you will love this band more through this best album.

All "greatest hits" and "best of" collections are inherently flawed. Almost universally, such collections leave out a favorite song or include songs that make some fans wonder how "best" or "great" was decided. Lastly, these collections are snapshots in time and will thus neglect later songs. Considering these issues, this collection is an excellent representation of Carlos Santana's career until 1998.

This collection does have two flaws. First, it includes only eight of Santana's 20+ albums. Second, this collection only includes songs that represent Santana's most commercial songs. I suppose the commercialism of this collection is to be expected, given that record companies are most interested in a collection that will sell the most. Thus, there is minimal representation of the jazz fusion music that Santana has performed on so many of his CDs.

Getting past the flaws, the 1969 album "Santana" provides the fast-paced and somewhat psychedelic song "Jingo." This song has a very fast beat with a lot of percussion. "Evil Ways" was also from this album and was a top 10 hit for Santana. The third track from this album is "Soul Sacrifice," a hard driving instrumental that seems to me to be the predecessor to some of Santana's later jazz fusion music. This album hit #4 on the Billboard charts and remained on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 108 weeks.

Santana's next album, "Abraxas," provides three songs, the phenomenal "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen," which reached #4 on the charts, "Oye Como Va," which reached #13 on the charts, and "Samba Pa Ti," a wonderful instrumental. "Abraxas" has been on several lists of the greatest albums of all time, listed at #85 on VH1's list and #205 on "Rolling Stone's" list. The album reached #1 and remained on the charts for 88 weeks.

The third album from Santana was "3," which also reached #1 on the charts and provides two songs for this collection. "No One to Depend On" reached #36 in the charts and "Everybody's Everything," which reached #12. This album was Santana's last #1 album until 1999's "Supernatural."

Santana's music then turned to jazz fusion. The album "Amigos" reached #10 in the charts and provides the longest song in this collection, the eight plus minute "Dance Sister Dance," and the instrumental "Europa." Both these tracks are complex and just a taste of Santana's other, less commercial music.

The song "She's Not There" is one of my favorite Santana songs, which peaked at #27 and is from the #10 album "Moonflower." This song is timeless, but has its roots in the music of the late 60s and early 70s. You can hear a jazz influence in this song even though the song is rock.

The song "Open Invitation" from 1978's "Inner Secrets" is a harder song with lots of guitars. The album reached #27 and was less successful than many of Santana's other albums. This song is a winner and is another of my favorite Santana songs. Yet another fast moving song is "All I Ever Wanted," from the #10 charting album "Marathon." The album was released during the disco era and managed to do well, bucking the disco trend. The song is an excellent song and great for party music.

The song "Winning" is one of the few songs in this collection that veer toward pop. This song reached #17 and was from the #9 charting 1981 album "Zebop!" Though this song is mellow, it is catchy and enjoyable.

Though Santana sounds like Santana, and has no equal, the opening to the song "Hold On" bears some resemblance to music by the Alan Parsons Project. This song reached #15 and is from the 1982 album "Shango," which reached #22. This song is more strongly pop than "Winning," but is yet another excellent song that begs to be listened over and over.

The last album represented in this collection is 1987's "Blues for Salvador," which reached #195 in the charts. The instrumental "Bella" is a gorgeous piece centered about a guitar, and combines elements of jazz, progressive and rock to create a very mellow and enjoyable piece of music.

Santana has been around for more than three decades, and continues to release new material regularly. His music is continually refreshed by changes in lineup and Santana's enjoyment in his art and ability to please fans while pleasing himself. While you could purchase much more music to truly appreciate the depth of Carlo Santana's music, here is an introduction that will certainly demand you to expand your musical horizons. Enjoy!

It is very hard to condense all of Santana's well known songs to one disc. True "You Know That I Love You" and "Stormy," as well as "Well..Alright" are missing, and the album Caravanserai seems to always get the shaft. But this does give one most of the best known songs in their full-length versions.

Outstanding is the sequencing: the elusive (elusive to greatest hits) "Nobody to Depend On" has a hard edit into "Open Invitation."

This features "Hold On" and "Winning" which have never appeared on any Santana anthology in the States. The booklet has superior remastering, and a booklet with a family tree.

The import Santana Collection covers more ground, more thoroughly, and hits all the albums including Caravanserai, but just misses by giving the import consumer liner notes in Dutch!!

If you want one CD of great Santana music. This fits the bill!! Saludos!