It starts with the cheesy title that sounds more like a cheapo compilation than a legitimate album, something you might expect to hear hawked by John Sebastian on a wee-hours Time-Life infomercial. And it just gets worse.

When you think back on the invigorating and unprecedented blend of hard rock and Latin jazz Carlos Santana brought to the table when he released his first four albums between 1969 and 1972, it's doubly sad to see him continue to cheapen his legacy with lowest-common-denominator concepts.

This grim affair is another special from Clive Davis, the veteran producer and record biz mogul who engineered Santana's 1999 mega-platinum disc Supernatural. That album, which paired the guitar god with contemporary Top 40 artists, reignited his career.

Although sales of his two followup discs, Shaman and All That I Am, were dramatically lower, it's easy to understand why Santana trusts Davis.

Davis's idea this time was to have Santana play 14 axe evergreens, each with a different rock belter. Among the vocalists are Chris Cornell, Scott Weiland and Gavin Rossdale.

On a DVD interview that accompanies the disc, Santana admits he turned down Davis's idea twice and overcame his fear only the third time.

Unfortunately, he was right the first two times.

The track selection presents a huge problem right off the bat: could Davis and his golden ears not come up with anything better than this bunch of overexposed power-chord anthems? Surely the world can live without covers of the likes of Whole Lotta Love, Smoke on the Water, Sunshine of Your Love and Back in Black. The latter, incidentally, comes in a rap version featuring Nas.

The snooze-inducing song choices would have been forgivable if the execution had elevated the dubious idea. If Santana had brought that distinctive Latin groove to these karaoke cliches, the project might have been saved. Unfortunately, the arrangements are mostly minor variations on the originals and not one selection touches the source material. In the end, the only surprise is really the pointlessness of the whole exercise.

Granted, it's never unwelcome to hear Santana's snarling, lyrical guitar outbursts, but he could do this stuff in his sleep.

And not least among the puzzling questions raised by this disappointing venture: how did the Doors' Riders on the Storm find a new identity as a guitar classic anyway?

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