Carlos Santana Needs To Be Stopped

​If you happened to watch last night's American Music Awards, well, I'm very sorry. If you didn't, our good friend Maura provides an in-depth live-blog summary over at the Awl, but here's the gist: Justin Bieber reigned supreme, Katy Perry wandered so far off key she made Taylor Swift sound like Pavarotti, Bon Jovi look hella old, Nicki Minaj interrupted the announcement of Rihanna's Best Soul/R&B Female Artist award to pimp Pink Friday (out today! brace yourselves!), and CARLOS SANTANA AND GAVIN ROSSDALE MURDERED "BANG A GONG" LIVE ONSTAGE.

To this point I have studiously avoided running afoul of Santana's new record, the demurely titled Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time, a decision I will justify by simply reproducing the tracklist:

1. "Whole Lotta Love" (feat. Chris Cornell) 3:51

2. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" (feat. Scott Weiland) 5:38

3. "Sunshine of Your Love" (feat. Rob Thomas) 4:43

4. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (feat. India.Arie & Yo-Yo Ma) 6:02

5. "Photograph" (feat. Chris Daughtry) 4:04

6. "Back in Black" (feat. Nas & Robyn Troup) 4:20

7. "Riders on the Storm" (feat. Chester Bennington & Ray Manzarek) 5:23

8. "Smoke on the Water" (feat. Jacoby Shaddix) 5:06

9. "Dance the Night Away" (feat. Patrick Monahan) 3:23

10. "Bang a Gong" (feat. Gavin Rossdale) 3:41

11. "Little Wing" (feat. Joe Cocker) 4:52

12. "I Ain't Superstitious" (feat. Jonny Lang)

Hard to tell the most horrifying flavor combination here (it's probably this, actually, if Maura is telling the truth), but rest assured Rossdale warbling "You're dirty sweet and you're my girl" amid a maelstrom of sexless, cowbell-saturated Latin-rock waywardness made one long for the tastefulness and audio/visual coherence of Ke$ha. If you really need to hear the studio version, go ahead; ABC is wisely keeping video of the AMA iteration off the Internet for fear it release some sort of super-virus. But here's the gist:

I agree with this guy.