Santana – Beyond Appearances / Music On Vinyl LP 2019 / MOVLP2369

UPC 8719262009257

Beyond Appearances is the fourteenth studio album by Santana, released in 1985.

The album took seven months to make, and involved a mostly different line-up than the previous one, Shangó (released in 1982): apart from Carlos Santana, singer Alex Ligertwood and percussionists Armando Peraza, Raul Rekow and Orestes Vilató were still with the band. This was singer Greg Walker's first album with Santana since Inner Secrets - he had left in 1979, and returned in 1983. As a result, the band had two vocalists at the time. It also was bassist Alphonso Johnson's first of two albums with the group, having joined in 1984; and the only to feature Chester C. Thompson on drums and David Sancious on keyboards. It also was the first with Chester D. Thompson on keyboards; he would remain with the band until the 2000s. The album is notable for the presence of two Chester Thompsons on the same record with the same band.

Musically, it was firmly in the style of the 1980s, making much use of synthesizers and drum machines.

Beyond Appearances performed relatively poorly, reaching only fifty on the Billboard album chart; one of its tracks, "Say It Again", reached number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart (though it performed better on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, reaching number fifteen).

Tracklist: