Tito & Tarantula is an American chicano rock/stoner rock band formed in Hollywood California in 1992 by singer/songwriter/guitarist Tito Larriva. The band is best known for its songs, "After Dark", "Back to the House That Love Built", "Strange Face of Love", and "Angry Cockroaches", as well as for its role in Robert Rodriguez's film From Dusk till Dawn as the band performing at the "Titty Twister" nightclub. "After Dark" was the track played during Salma Hayek's iconic exotic dance scene in that film, and later became the theme for From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series. Back into the Darkness is the fifth album by Tito & Tarantula, released in 2008.

At the height of her decade-long rise to fame, Julieta Venegas released her first live album, MTV Unplugged, a star-studded and meticulously arranged performance recorded before 450 adoring fans in Mexico City. She performs her greatest hits, of course, but she also adds to her set list relatively obscure songs – most delightfully "Esta Vez," a ballad from her debut album, Aquí (1998) – and several new songs, including the international chart-topping lead single, "El Presente." As with many MTV Unplugged albums, guest stars are featured throughout; most noteworthy among them here are Spanish rapper Mala Rodríguez, who performs in the place of Chilean rapper Anita Tijoux on "Eres Para Mí," and Brazilian superstar Marisa Monte, who duets in Portuguese on "Ilusión" (a new song written by Venegas, Monte, and Arnaldo Antunes). Guest star or not, the performances are each interesting in their arrangements, which are generally quite different from their studio original counterparts.

Before the arrival of Carlos Santana's eponymous band, the San Francisco rock scene drew the inspiration for its jam-oriented music mainly from blues, rock, and Eastern modalities. Santana added Latin music to the mix, forever changing the course of rock & roll history. On their groundbreaking debut album, the group mix Latin percussion with driving rock grooves. Santana's unique guitar style, alternately biting and liquid, vies with the multiple percussionists for the sonic focus. Unlike later efforts, Santana's first album features an abundance of loose, collective compositions based on a couple of simple riffs ("Jingo," "Soul Sacrifice"). This approach allows for Santana and his bandmates to flex their improvisational muscles to fine effect. The high-energy level on Santana is infectious – the laid-back feel of other '60s San Francisco groups was clearly not for Carlos and co.

The San Francisco Bay Area rock scene of the late '60s was one that encouraged radical experimentation and discouraged the type of mindless conformity that's often plagued corporate rock. When one considers just how different Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead sounded, it becomes obvious just how much it was encouraged. In the mid-'90s, an album as eclectic as Abraxas would be considered a marketing exec's worst nightmare. But at the dawn of the 1970s, this unorthodox mix of rock, jazz, salsa, and blues proved quite successful. Whether adding rock elements to salsa king Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va," embracing instrumental jazz-rock on "Incident at Neshabur" and "Samba Pa Ti," or tackling moody blues-rock on Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman," the band keeps things unpredictable yet cohesive. Many of the Santana albums that came out in the '70s are worth acquiring, but for novices, Abraxas is an excellent place to start.

Billed as the first Santana compilation to span his entire career, it is true that Ultimate Santana does indeed run the gamut from 1969's "Evil Ways" to 2002's "Game of Love," but if you think that means it handles all phases of his career equally, you'd be sadly mistaken. Essentially, this 18-track set plays like a collection of highlights from his Supernatural-era comebacks, spiked with a couple of classic rock oldies – because that's what it really is. It contains no less than ten superstar duets, including new numbers with Nickelback's Chad Kroeger (the streamlined and smoothed "Into the Night," which has little of Kroeger's trademark growly histrionics) and Jennifer Lopez and Baby Bash ("This Boy's Fire," a dance number where Santana seems incidental), plus a version of "The Game of Love" with Tina Turner (don't worry, the lighter, brighter, superior Michelle Branch version is here too) and plus "Interplanetary Party," which is a new band recording that sounds like a star duet.

Given the sheer size of his catalog and the preponderance of Santana best-of compilations out there, trying to pick a single-disc collection can be a quest. This one, issued by Sony, assembles 17 cuts from the band's long run with Columbia, and does a very decent, if not perfect, job of capturing the essence of the band by collecting little more than just the hit singles. In accomplishing that, it does leave out some seminal cuts – there isn't even an edited version of "Soul Sacrifice here, nor are "Samba Pa Ti" from Abraxas and "Song of the Wind" from Caravanserai present. That said, virtually everything here is very solid.

Santana III is an album that undeservingly stands in the shadows behind the towering legend that is the band's second album, Abraxas. This was also the album that brought guitarist Neal Schon – who was 17 years old – into the original core lineup of Santana. Percussionist Thomas "Coke" Escovedo was brought in to replace (temporarily) José Chepitó Areas, who had suffered a brain aneurysm, yet who recovered quickly and rejoined the band. The rest were Carlos, organist Gregg Rolie, drummer Michael Schrieve, bassist David Brown, and conguero Michael Carabello. "Batuka" is the powerful first evidence of something being very different. The band was rawer, darker, and more powerful with twin leads and Schon's harder, edgier rock & roll sound paired with Carlos' blend of ecstatic high notes and soulful fills.

After teaming up with Herbie Hancock for the jazz-flavored The Swing of Delight album, Carlos Santana reentered the pop/rock realm with the rest of his band for 1981's Zebop!. He still managed to include a little bit of his famed Latino sound into a few of the tracks ("E Papa Re," "American Gypsy"), albeit only slightly, but Zebop!'s overall feel is that of commercial rock, with the guitar arriving at the forefront through most of the cuts. Santana does a marvelous job at covering Russ Ballard's "Winning," taking it to number 17 on the charts, while "The Sensitive Kind" is built around the same type of radio-friendly structure yet it stalled at number 56. Zebop!'s formula is simple, and all of the songs carry an appeal that is aimed at a wider and more marketable audience base, with "Changes," "Searchin," and "I Love You Much Too Much" coming through as efficient yet not overly extravagant rock & roll efforts…

Santana was still a respected rock veteran in 1999, but it had been years since he had a hit, even if he continued to fare well on the concert circuits. Clive Davis, the man who had signed Santana to Columbia in 1968, offered him the opportunity to set up shop at his label, Arista. In the tradition of comebacks and label debuts by veteran artists in the '90s, Supernatural, Santana's first effort for Arista, is designed as a star-studded event. At first listen, there doesn't seem to be a track that doesn't have a guest star, which brings up the primary problem with the album - despite several interesting or excellent moments, it never develops a consistent voice that holds the album together. The fault doesn't lay with the guest stars or even with Santana, who continues to turn in fine performances…

The third time around is not a charm for Carlos Santana, who delivers his third straight star-studded, middle-of-the-road pop album in a row with 2005's All That I Am. Like 2002's Shaman, this follows the blueprint that producer/record mogul Clive Davis laid down on 1999's Supernatural, which means that apart from a cut or two, Santana functions as a supporting musician to a parade of guest stars singing pop songs on his own album. On Supernatural this worked not just because it was a relatively fresh concept that revitalized Santana, but because the guest stars were well chosen and the material was sharp, commercial, and memorable. Shaman was more uneven but it did have one great single in "The Game of Love," a song penned by professional songwriters and sung by Michelle Branch - it didn't sound much like Santana, but it did make for excellent listening on adult contemporary radio…

There really are more War best-of packages than the situation warrants, and while the double-CD The Very Best of War is a fine compilation if you don't already have one in your collection, it's questionable whether it was a necessary addition to the band's discography. For one thing, it doesn't differ all that much from the previous two-CD War best-of on Rhino, Anthology (1970-1994). Sure, each has a few tracks not on the other, but both are built around their lengthy string of big hits. Even Barry Alfonso's accompanying essay was adapted from the liner notes to Anthology (1970-1994). Still, this does have all of the big chart hits and a few minor ones, as well as standout album tracks from throughout the 1970s and early '80s that illustrate the band's versatility. Reading the small print on the track listings, it's revealed that half a dozen of these cuts are edits that either appear here for the first time or were only available on previous anthologies or imports.

By the release of Amigos, the Santana band's seventh album, only Carlos Santana and David Brown remained from the band that conquered Woodstock, and only Carlos had been in the band continuously since. Meanwhile, the group had made some effort to arrest its commercial slide, hiring an outside producer, David Rubinson, and taking a tighter, more up-tempo, and more vocal approach to its music. The overt jazz influences were replaced by strains of R&B/funk and Mexican folk music. The result was an album more dynamic than any since Santana III in 1971. "Let It Shine" (number 77), an R&B-tinged tune, became the group's first chart single in four years, and the album returned Santana to Top Ten status.

Santana Love Songs? There have been two instrumental collections already, so why not? Sony's choices are pretty solid for the most part, and it's obvious this record was created more as a vibe album than a theme one – given that "Samba Pa Ti" is an instrumental, is it really a love song? But this might have been called Music for Loving or Wit the Lights Off or something like that, because the mood is unabashedly romantic though far from syrupy or sentimental. The sheer sensuality in Santana's guitar tone and the placement of percussion in the mix offers plenty of texture for languid amorous tunes like the band's cover of "Stormy" or J.J. Cale's "The Sensitive Kind." Add to this Tom Coster's gorgeous merengue "Flor d'Luna," or Alan Pasqua and Santana's shimmering "Aqua Marine," or the Jim Capaldi/Carlos-authored track "Before We Go," and you have an unabashedly romantic, lushly ornate yet moving collection of tunes that set the stage for amour.

Picking out the best instrumentals from Carlos Santana's thirty-year recording career is a daunting task at best, and a fan can certainly find reasons to disagree with some of the choices made in this collection. However, this German release is valuable in bringing together undisputed Santana classic guitar pieces like "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)," "Samba Pa Ti," "Flor D'Luna (Moonflower)" and "Soul Sacrifice" with lesser known masterworks like "Aqua Marine" and the superb "Song of the Wind." True, there's no "Toussaint L'Ouverture" or "Incident at Neshabur," but how would you like to have to narrow this long-lived band's catalog down to fifteen tracks? Besides, the true fan already has the original albums and earlier compilations. This disc takes its listeners on a high intensity trip through time on the spiritual wings of Carlos Santana's soaring electric guitar. It's a trip worth taking.