La Radiolina is the fifth solo album (fourth studio album) by Manu Chao

Manu Chao

Manu Chao , is a French singer of Spanish roots . He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages...

. It was released on 4 September 2007. Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 saw an advance release of the album on 30 August.

"Rainin in Paradize", the first single from the album, was available before its official release for download on his website. The single features a music video directed by Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica

Emir Kusturica

Emir Nemanja Kusturica , is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films...

. There is also a video for the song "Me Llaman Calle", featuring Manu Chao performing in a local bar.

Track listing

1. "13 Días"
2. "Tristeza Maleza"
3. "Politik Kills"
4. "Rainin In Paradize
   Rainin In Paradize
   "Rainin in Paradize" is the first single released from Manu Chao's fourth studio album, La Radiolina. The song was first released on the artist's official website as a free download in June 2007 before it was officially released on July 2 through digital outlets such as iTunes worldwide...
   
    (Scheps version)"
5. "Besoin de la Lune"
6. "El Kitapena"
7. "Me Llaman Calle"
8. "A Cosa"
9. "The Bleedin Clown (Scheps version)"
10. "Mundorévès"
11. "El Hoyo"
12. "La Vida Tómbola"
13. "Mala Fama"
14. "Panik Panik"
15. "Otro Mundo"
16. "Piccola Radiolina"
17. "Y Ahora Qué?"
18. "Mama Cuchara"
19. "Siberia"
20. "Soñe Otro Mundo"
21. "Amalucada Vida"

Languages and style

The album's title La Radiolina means the small radio in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, referring to a small-sized transistor radio. The album is mainly sung in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. "Politik Kills", "Rainin In Paradize", "The Bleedin Clown" and the first two lines of "Siberia" are in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

; "Besoin de la Lune" and "Panik Panik" are in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

; "A Cosa" is in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, a first for Manu Chao; "Amalucada Vida" is in Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....

.

Musically, the album features a trademark of Manu Chao's style in its re-utilizing of the same instrumental backing tracks with different melodies and lyrics:

• "Rainin In Paradize", "El Kitapena", "Siberia" and "Mama Cuchara" all feature the same backing track, which is slightly heavier and rockier than the usual Manu Chao output, with distorted guitars played by Madjid Fahem.
• "El Hoyo" and "Panik Panik" are similar in style to the above song, but the chords are slightly different.
• Other tracks on the album are just coupled by using the same music: "13 Días" and "Besoin de la Lune"; "Politik Kills" and "Mundorévès"; "A Cosa" and "Amalucada Vida"; "The Bleedin Clown" and "Y Ahora Qué?", which at the same time have the same lead guitar melody as "Tristeza Maleza", but on a different chord.
• "Piccola Radiolina" is an edited instrumental version of "Mala Fama".
• "Soñé Otro Mundo" is a short instrumental excerpt from "Otro Mundo".
• "Me Llaman Calle" and "La Vida Tómbola" feature the same chords and the same accompaniment pattern, although the music is not exactly identical.

A similar "recycling" process also affects some of the lyrics. "Tristeza Maleza" features the repeated phrase "Infinita Tristeza", from the album Próxima Estación: Esperanza; the lyrics for "Besoin de la Lune" originally appeared with different music, and in a slightly longer version, on the album Sibérie m'était contéee

Sibérie m'était contéee

Sibérie m'était contéee is the first French language-only album by Manu Chao, released in 2004. This album features, along with a CD, an oversized book with lyrics to songs from the album and previous Manu Chao albums, as well as illustrations by Jacek Woźniak...

; that same album also included the original French lyrics of "Sibérie" (again with different music), which Chao partly translated in "Siberia"; the lyrics for "Mama Cuchara" were originally written in Quito

Quito

San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...

, Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, during a rainy Sunday, and originally appeared, with different music, in Chao's short film "Infinita Tristeza", included in the Kikelandia bonus section of the 2002 Babylonia en Guagua DVD (that performance was never officially released). Additionally, "13 Días" and "Otro Mundo" contain phrases appearing several times in Chao's previous output, such as "Me hielo en la habitación / No tengo calefacción" in "13 Días" and "Calavera no llora / Serenata de amor" in "Otro Mundo". The lyrics to the tracks "Panik Panik" and "Politik Kills" are the same as those in the tracks "Camions Sauvages" and "Politic Amagni" respectively on Amadou & Mariam

Amadou & Mariam

Amadou & Mariam are a musical duo from Mali, composed of the couple Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia . The pair, known as "the blind couple from Mali" met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind, and found they shared an interest in music...

's album Dimanche à Bamako

Dimanche à Bamako

Dimanche à Bamako is the fourth album by Malian duo Amadou & Mariam featuring, and produced by, French singer Manu Chao. It was released on the Nonesuch Records label on 2 August 2005....

 which was produced by Manu Chao.

Personnel/credits

• Manu Chao – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
   and guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  s
• Madjid Fahem – guitars and bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• David Bourguigon – guitars
• Jean Michel Gambit a.k.a. Gambeat – bass and vocals
• Roy Paci – trumpet
  Trumpet
  The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
  
  s
• Angelo Mancini – trumpets on "Politik Kills"
• Tonino Carotone – vocals and harmonies on "A Cosa"
• Amadou Bagayoko
  Amadou & Mariam
  Amadou & Mariam are a musical duo from Mali, composed of the couple Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia . The pair, known as "the blind couple from Mali" met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind, and found they shared an interest in music...
  
   – guitar on "A Cosa"
• Cheik Tidiane – keyboard
  Musical keyboard
  A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
  
   on "A Cosa"
• Flor – Spoken vocals
  Spoken word
  Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
  
   on "A Cosa"
• Beatnik – vocals on "Tristeza Maleza"
• José Manuel Gamboa and Carlos Herrero – flamenco guitar
  Flamenco guitar
  A flamenco guitar is a guitar similar to a classical guitar. Flamenco guitar also refers to toque, the guitar-playing part of the art of Flamenco.-Brief history:...
  
  s on "Me Llaman Calle"
• Writing, composition
  Musical composition
  Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
  
  , and production
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
   – Manu Chao
• Mixing
  Audio mixing (recorded music)
  In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
  
   – Mario C., Andrew Scheps, Manu Chao, and Charlie VDE Farravox
• Mastering
  Audio mastering
  Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
  
   – Adam Ayan at Gateway Sound
• Artwork – Manu Chao and Wozniak
• Photos
  Photography
  Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
  
   – Chucolinai

Chart performance

Chart (2007)	Peak position
Austrian Album Chart	5
Belgium Album Chart Ultratop Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...  (Flanders Flanders Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp... )	1
Belgium Album Chart (Wallonia)	2
Danish Album Chart	20
Dutch Album Chart	10
Finnish Album Chart	13
French Album Chart	2
Italian Album Chart	2
Mexican AMPROFON AMPROFON Asociación Mexicana de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas is a non-profit organization integrated by multinational and national record companies in Mexico. Established on April 3, 1963, it groups phonographic companies that represent more than 70 percent of the market in Mexico... Album Chart	10
Norwegian Album Chart	7
Portuguese Album Chart	11
Spanish PROMUSICAE PROMUSICAE Spanish Music Producers is a trade group representing the Spanish recording industry... Album Chart	1
Swedish Album Chart	4
Swiss Album Chart	1
US Billboard Top Latin Albums Billboard Top Latin Albums Latin Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine and is labeled as the most important music chart for Spanish language, full-length albums in the American music market. Like all Billboard album charts, the chart is based on sales...	1
US Billboard Top Canadian Albums	6
US Billboard Independent Albums Independent Albums The Billboard Independent Albums is a chart of the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays in the United States, compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is used to list artists who are not signed to major labels...	7
US Billboard Top Internet Albums	71
US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	71
US Billboard Top World Music Albums	1

Year-End Charts

Chart (2007)	Peak position
US Billboard Top World Albums	14

Sales and certifications

External links

• "La Radiolina" - The Leak—stream the whole album at MTV.com