Customer Rating: 
Summary: Alienation, dispair, and hope...
Comment: There are so many reviews on this recording, but many miss some important points. Yes, this music can be appreciated on purely musical merits.. it's really very good and it grows on you. But it's brilliance lies in his ability to use his own 'foreign-ness' (he's French, singing in Spanish mostly) to express the alienation and dispair of the illegal immigrant in Europe-- that illegal immigrant symbolizing the angst of any modern individual who is paying attention to what is happening in our world. Manu Chao's often over-enunciated and simplistic Spanish mimics the immigrant who speaks Spanish as an acquired language: the Africans and Arabs that sneak into Spain and other countries to find work, to find a future... he even sings slightly off-key and off-rhythmn at times to seem like a natural narration, a man on the road... Other times he exhibits a beautiful (non-nasal) voice.
That theme of alienation and dispair-- hiding, being pursued, suffering, loneliness, the great lies of this world-- is often punctuated by hopeful flights of fancy and exuberant musical celebrations. Some of the pieces are as odd as the world around us: snippets of radio, TV, newscasts, a Zapatista manifesto, sampled music, sounds of nature and the street... all mixed into a wonderful musical narration.
Manu Chao's recent concert in Tijuana (August 2008) was a huge event, with the environment and context of his concert (at the bullring by the sea, literally right next to the busiest border in the world)-- a great venue for a very important artist with an adoring crowd. He appeared at a local bar afterward, continuing to generously give of himself, talking to and hugging everyone who aproached him.
