Manu Chao - La Radiolina

La Radiolina is Manu Chao's first studio CD in 6 years, and, in all honesty, it was worth the wait. The CD is classic Manu Chao, in the sense that it's wildly fresh. To say that it blends genres would be oversimplifying things - rather, Manu Chao does with music what a brilliant assemblage artist does with a heap of old scrap metal - bends it, twists it, fuses it, all in the mission to create something more beautiful and awe-striking than any of the individual parts could have been.

We waited a long time for La Radiolina. A very long time. Manu Chao's last studio album was 2002's Proxima Estacion: Esperanza, and that album is perhaps more responsible for the upswing of the popularity of world music among the youth of the world than any other. It is frequently lauded as no less than a masterpiece, speaking to the musical needs and wants of the growing world village. La Radiolina, needless to say, had a lot to live up to.

Far from falling into the third-album slump, La Radiolina is simply luminous from start to finish. It's as fresh and relevant, if not more so, as Manu Chao's other two albums. From the bluegrassy opening tune "13 Dias" to the unabashedly political "Politik Kills" to the quiet and contemplative reggae-laden closing track "Amaluca Vida", La Radiolina is a multilingual, polyethnic celebration of music and hope, and it's Manu Chao's best work to date.

June 27, 2007