This CD... it is such a masterpiece a la fois full of spirit, energy, tristesse, love... too many emotions to list, and the strangest thing is you discover more upon successive listenings. As a musician, Manu is energetic and impeccable; as a songwriter and lyricist he can be inspired, profound, light-hearted or revealing, and the producing is seamless (often literally, as one track slides into the next). This isn't Pop Music though it's doing well on the charts in Europe, it's only 'Ethnic' Music if you don't speak Spanish or French (get a frend to translate for you! Of course, it grooves so hard you can simply smoke to it, but you'd be missing out...) but I wouldn't say it defies classification: This is International music at it's best... They say that 'language is the only homeland', and that 'Music is the earth's only true language'... In both cases it's obvious that Manu Chao has proven himself a Citizen of the Earth at his best and brightest, taking 3 languages, even more music traditions and whipping them up into something we can all understand with simply the ears and the heart.

This is one of the greatest CDs I've ever heard! I had been a fan of Mano Negra since the early 90s because their incredible mixture of French and Spanish music. After they split up I was quite curious to see what Mano Chao would do. My first impression was not the best, I thought the album was very strange and in some way repeating itself without having fast rock songs like the Mano had. But then I noticed that I was playing the CD again and again even singing the lyrics at work: this record is like hypnotizing you, the mixture of latin sounds is terrific and also the melancolic texts of Manu are full of meanings. My favorites: Desaparecido, Mentira and La despedida.

There's no escaping music, travelling in South America - four months of non-stop salsa, peruvian pan-pipes, merengue, mariachi, mournful latin balladeers and latin pop, and I figured I'd had enough of music full stop - what starts as an irrestistable rhythm the first time you hear your bus driver's favourite tape rapidly becomes unrelenting as the tape is replayed for the fifth or fifteenth consecutive time, and there's nowhere to run.

But suddenly, sitting in a tiny cafe the other day, someone put on Manu Chau. It only took till track 4 to realise the enormity of the moment, the impact it would have on the funkiness of my life from that point on, dashed to the counter to find out what the hell it was, and down the street to find it. There's a small music shop down the avenida del Sol, where they exude a sort of High Fidelity kind of professionalism, and sure enough, the wise man behind the counter nodded in recognition of the name, asked me to wait one moment, and dissappeared for 45 minutes, returning triumphantly with a copy of the CD - although refusing to sell it to me till we (and the gathering crowd) had had a good listen. The crowd smiled, tapped feet, nodded approval at my purchase, and I returned my prize to the safety of my hostal.... Shame I don't have a CD player with me...

Manu Chao's Clandestino was the biggest musical discovery for me in 1999. This CD is a musical journey full of surprises that will make you play it over and over again. It seems to me Clandestino came straight from Manu Chao's heart, mind and soul and that truly shows. The music paints very vivid pitcures and can not leave listener passive and uninterested. Intriguing and powerful, it is full of life and pleasent sounds, it is full of that special "universal language" that we so often forget, but crave in today's commercialized world. It will bring you up when you are down; it will cool you off when you need it; it will enrich you in every way music can do.

I'm not sure how to describe this record's pastiche of Latin, Spanish, Carribean, Reggae, African, French and psychedelic music, and I don't mean to make it sound too exotic, because everything here is extremely accessible. Nor is it "rootsy" world music--in fact, it is as (post)modern a production as any Radiohead album, with its judicious use of samples and odd textures over more traditional instrumentation. It's not hard to pick up on the homage to Bob Marley, especially in his vocals and melodies, but I'm sure there are myriad influences I can't detect as well. I can say that there is not a weak track on this record--it is stupendous all the way through, and your favorites will change each day. If I had to pick a highlight it would be the first ten songs(!) And you hear traces of previous songs floating through later ones, revealing a coherency in the vision of the record. It is simultaneously a great party record and a great chill-out record. Manu Chao is a very gifted guy--check him out.