Manu Chao - La Radiolina Review

We live in an age where many artists feel compelled to release albums every year lest the music buying public forget them. Manu Chao has left a staggering six year gap between his last album and La Radiolina (Little Radio). But when you're a world music artist whose debut album was outsold only by Buena Vista Social Club, it's safe to say you're not going to be forgotten easily....full text Manu Chao makes music that cuts across cultural lines. As though singing in seven languages (French, Spanish, Galician, Arabic, English, Portuguese, and Wolof) wasn't enough, he brings aspects of music from across Western Europe, North Africa, and the Americas into his sound. You could say he was destined to live a life between cultures from the start. He was born in Paris to Spanish parents who had fled Franco's regime. His mother was from Bilbao, in Basque country, while his father was a journalist from Galicia, a region in far northwestern Spain that, like Basque country, has its own unique language....full text Even by post-millennial standards, six years between successive studio albums is a long time to keep the fans waiting. And then to produce one which sounds half-finished? Well, “Mala Fama” (‘evil fame’) is the title of one of these 21(!) new songs, so maybe Manu Chao is playfully courting obscurity....full text