But they did.
Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas - Smooth
One of these two was the lead singer of Matchbox 20, possibly one of the blandest, paint by numbers college rock bands ever. Matchbox 20 were once described as being like the Counting Crows but without all the wingeing, and they were actually happy about that.
Clearly they failed to grasp that it was all the angsty stuff that made the Counting Crows so good.
The other one was the guitarist from, well, Santana. If anyone can name more than one Santana song, they are doing better than me.
The one song that everyone remembers is “Black Magic Woman”, which was, surprisingly enough, a cover of an old Fleetwood Mac song.* More recently, Carlos Santana has taken his effects pedal that clearly only has one setting and dominated the world of duets, but most of his work, and particularly the recent duet with that Aerosmith dude, has been woeful.
How in the world did these two come up with “Smooth”, one of the most passionate and most funkiest love songs ever?
It’s baffling, but it rocked.
Rob Thomas proved with this song that he really was the natural successor to the Counting Crows by being only the second person ever to get away with using the word “barrio” in an English language recording, although it must be said that rhyming it with “radio” was probably pushing the friendship.
William Shatner, Henry Rollins and Ben Folds – I can’t get behind that
Yes, there really was a song co-written by Captain Kirk, the lead singer of legendary punk band Black Flag, and the undisputed prince** of piano pop.
As Andrew Denton asked at the time, which one of those three guys sat down one day and decided he wanted to work with the other two?
It would be pushing it to suggest that this song is a classic, or even that it is particularly good. The point is that it’s impressive that it exists at all.
I am also endlessly curious as to whether any, and if so how many, of these guys were taking the piss. More importantly, if it was only two of them, did Rollins ever find out?
Shannon Noll and Natalie Bassingthwaite – Don’t give up
Just kidding
Wyclef Jean and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – It doesn’t matter
Yes, seriously, a credible hip hop artist who knows Lauren Hill and everything teamed up with a wrestler turned actor who is good at, um, yelling “It doesn’t matter”.
This type of novelty song would usually sink like a stone in the manner of any recording with which Mark Mitchell was involved, or at the very least it would be hated by all people of taste in a manner not seen since Chris “not funny” Franklin released “Bloke”. In view of Wyclef’s previous collaboration with the cast of South Park, my hopes for this recording were not high.
So I was utterly surprised when this song turned out to be one of the most gloriously skankin’ releases in the entire history of hip hop.
A line like “I’ve got a garden full of tress and a pocket full of cheese IT DOESN’T MATTER” would be reason enough to fall in love with this recording. But what really sold me on this was Wyclef’s perfectly pithy analysis of the vital importance of both loyalty to one’s roots and a commitment to redistribution of wealth when he reminded us that “If you ain’t sharing, people ain’t caring. Come up in the hood and they’ll take everything you’re wearing”.
Which proves beyond all doubt that random and ostensibly stupid musical collaborations are frequently a Good Thing.
*Possibly the most obscure musical fact on this blog yet, but entirely true.
** He cannot be king for so long as Billy Joel still lives
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