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Rick Diamond/WireImageMan, it was a hot one 20 years ago this Saturday: That’s when “Smooth” — by Santana featuring Rob Thomas — was first released.
The song topped the charts for 12 weeks, won three Grammys, and has been declared the second most-successful song of all time by Billboard, behind Chubby Checker‘s “The Twist.” It also changed everything for Thomas, who, back in 1999, was “just” the lead singer of the best-selling band Matchbox Twenty.
“Before that, we had sold, like, 15 million records and thought that we were kind of a big deal,” Thomas tells ABC Radio. “And then, ever since — there’s, like, pre-and-post ‘Smooth.’ So if I go anywhere and somebody says ‘Oh, I love that song’…I know what song they’re talking about.”
Rob Thomas co-wrote the song with Itaal Shur for Santana’s album Supernatural, but he says, “I didn’t even know it was going to be a single.” Until one day in New York City when a car full of girls drove by him, blaring “Smooth.”
“I called my wife and I was like, ‘Honey, I think they put it out on the radio!'” Thomas says, laughing.
In the last 20 years, “Smooth” has become an Internet meme, and also a frequent target of abuse. But Rob doesn’t really care.
“That song is up for grabs now,” he muses. “It was like this cultural moment in a song, and so it became bigger than me.”
Thomas adds, “I don’t think is the best song that I’ve written. It’s not the best one that Carlos [Santana] has done. It was just this perfect storm: the right song, the right time, the right moment, the right album. I think it just has a life of its own now. I don’t take it too seriously.”
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