La Radiolina

1	13 Días 2:36
2	Tristeza Maleza 2:54
3	Politik Kills 3:02
4	Rainin in Paradize 3:41
5	Besoin de La Lune 1:54
6	El Kitapena 1:55
7	Me Llaman Calle 3:14
8	A Cosa 2:14
9	The Bleedin Clown 1:54
10	Mundo Révès 1:48
11	El Hoyo 3:22
12	La Vida Tombola 3:16
13	Mala Fama 4:07
14	Panik Panik 1:46
15	Otro Mundo 2:47
16	Piccola Radiolina 1:08
17	Y Ahora Qué? Bonus Track 1:45
18	Mama Cuchara Bonus Track 1:42
19	Siberia Bonus Track 2:04
20	Soñe Otro Mundo Bonus Track 1:19
21	Amalucada Vida Bonus Track 4:57
22	Tévélina Multimedia Track

Barnes & Noble

Manu Chao not only discovered a new career with his international hit Clandestino in 1998, he discovered a new way of making music. The acoustic-based sound collages of that album, anchored by repetitive melodies and snippets of conversation, were a dreamy evocation of Chao's globe-trotting style. Since then, he's put a band together and become a tireless world traveler, and La Radiolina applies the methods of Clandestino to a more amped-up sound. Of the 21 songs, half of them seem to be extracts and recombinations of "Rainin' in Paradize," a chugging rocker that features an ascending guitar scribble, some background whooping, and a litany of troubled locales around the world. Those elements repeat themselves throughout the album, popping up as background noises and reprises, especially on "Mama Cuchara," where the lyric is in Spanish, and "Panik Panik," which brings sirens and guitar solos to the fore over a French vocal. The album's other predominant mood is an acoustic one, on songs like the Flamenco-inflected "Me Llaman Calle" and "La Vida Tómbola," where Chao envisions life as the soccer star Diego Maradona. Ten years after Clandestino, he seems to have lost interest in the prosaic elements of songwriting -- bridges, choruses, and the like -- preferring the construction of one long, varied piece of music with peaks and valleys, combining and recombining. While none of the individual song sketches boast the allure of that album's more fleshed-out work, the whole is strangely compelling on its own, endlessly expanding and changing, just like Manu Chao's gypsy life. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

European superstar Manu Chao has long gotten by on writing simple repetitive melodies with simple repetitive lyrics, making it, if nothing else, easy for his international audience to sing along, no matter their native language. So it is not particularly surprisingly he follows the same pattern on his fourth studio full-length, Radiolina, recycling not only musical and lyrical phrases throughout the actual album, but also borrowing from his previous work. "Infinita tristeza!" he wails, alluding to an older track of the same name, in "Tristeza Malera" -- sadness being a common theme for Chao alongside government and marijuana -- while "Rainin in Paradize" incorporates the line "This world go crazy, it's an atrocity," substituting the "atrocity" for the "emergency" in "Mr. Marley." Even more overt are the melodic reappearances that occur during Radiolina: "The Bleedin Clown," "Otro Mundo," "13 Diàs," and "Rainin in Paradize" all appear at least twice in the record, and while this does create a kind of continuity, it also drags the songs down, making everything seem a little trite. It's not that this should be unexpected: this is Chao's modus operandi, so to speak, and it's worked well for him, giving him a recognizable sound and approach that is appreciated by fans worldwide. But ironically, the biggest problem with the album is that it doesn't sound enough like the artist, like he knew he had to offer something different but wasn't exactly sure how to go about it, and so his experiments with bluesy country ("13 Diás," "Besoin de la Lune") and electric guitar-driven polished rock ("Y Ahora Qué," "Rainin in Paradize") seem a little forced and inauthentic. Certainly there are good songs -- "La Vida Tombola," which references Argentine soccer hero Diego Maradona and his (in)famous "Hand of God" goal against England in the 1986 World Cup, or "Politik Kills," which takes a classic reggae-inspired Chao beat alongside provocative lyrics -- but there's also, at 21 tracks, a lot of filler, filler that gets boring, too much like the artist and too much unlike the artist at the same time, making for an album that, despite its best efforts, can't quite figure itself out. Marisa Brown

Rolling Stone

1/2 La Radiolina's more guitar-based sonics will feel inevitable too, especially once you follow the same dynamic riff through three consecutive songs up front. Robert Christgau