Nu Metal vs. Steve Vai vs. Santana

["Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Our esteemed leader, Kim wrote:

"well duh. Santana is great, but he's old news. Everybody who was going to
be influenced by Santana already got influenced 25 years ago. The "nu metal
jerk" probably reaches far more people today than Santana has in years."


I agree with your take on Vai, Steve, but I think you are dead wrong about
Santana.

Remember, he had a number one hit this last year and sold some 7 million
copies of the record it came off of.

The numbers speak for themselves.  I heard of an interview with him where 
he
was talking about how many young fans were at his concert who had brought
their parents along (or vice versa).

You just can't rack up those kinds of commercial numbers without having an
effect on the culture at large.

I've always love Carlos's music (heck, I used to go see him play in the
parks for free on Sundays growing up when his band was called the Carlos
Santana Blues Band and he had not even begun his Latino/Blues hybrid and 
was
only playing straight Chicago styled electric blues)
so my ears perked up when he was so successful last year.

What I noticed was that for about 4 months his music was EVERYWHERE in 
Santa
Cruz: in coffee shops, bookstores, bars, on people's car stereos.

It would be very interesting to find out
how many young people are aware of his music.  I would guess that it would
be much more than you might think.

yours,  Rick Walker (loop.pool)