{"id":314,"date":"2013-09-05T18:48:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T18:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=314"},"modified":"2013-09-09T22:22:15","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T22:22:15","slug":"314","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=314","title":{"rendered":"RS #474: Manu Chao, Proxima Estacion: Esperanza"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Manu
He’s trying to woo the birds with his sweet, sweet guitar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

#474<\/p>\n

Manu Chao,\u00a0Proxima Estacion:\u00a0Esperanza<\/h3>\n
Release Date:<\/strong>\u00a02001<\/div>\n
Previously Owned:<\/strong>\u00a0No<\/div>\n
First Time Listen<\/strong>: Yes<\/div>\n
\n

Impressions:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>At first, this album came off as generic\u00a0worldbeat, but with samples (“Merry Blues,”) but sort of warmed up and seemed to cover a lot of stylistic ground (reggae, jazz, rock, latin, etc)–albeit in a loping way, low-key way. So, sort of like Joe Strummer and the\u00a0Mescalaros minus Strummer. Sometimes it sounded like a leaner version of The Clash’s “Sandanista.” Some of it seems sort-of-political also, but since I can’t speak French\/Spanish\/Italian\/Arabic\/Galician\/Portuguese, I can only guess what most of the lyrics are about. Sound-wise, it’s a mix of\u00a0horns, samples,\u00a0scratchy guitar, acoustic\u00a0strumming, plus a\u00a0slide whistle here and there.\u00a0Kind a fun mess\u00a0with short songs that flow into each other, although sometimes this floaty vibe kept them from really soaring (or even having choruses in some cases.) Not being a\u00a0good with any other language besides English, I think some of this\u00a0misses me content-wise, but I like the polymorphous blend of styles. It seems kind of light-weight and transitional, but still well-made\u00a0in a way that few people could pull off without seeming like mushy background music for a Starbucks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
Starred Songs:<\/strong>\u00a0“Mi Vida,” “Mr. Bobby,” “Me Gustas T\u00fa,” “Bixo”<\/div>\n
Sneaky Track:<\/strong>\u00a0“La Chintal”<\/div>\n
Should this album be on the\u00a0list?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Maybe. It’s a unique vision, but its lack of urgency doesn’t make it a slam dunk for me. I like that it’s on the list for variety.
\nWill you\u00a0listen to this again:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0I might, but more likely I’d sprinkle its short songs in with the iTunes.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Verdict:<\/strong>\u00a0 Light-weight, accessable Euro-reggae-latin-world melange of sounds that goes down easy…maybe too easy.<\/div>\n
Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

#474 Manu Chao,\u00a0Proxima Estacion:\u00a0Esperanza Release Date:\u00a02001 Previously Owned:\u00a0No First Time Listen: Yes Impressions:\u00a0\u00a0At first, this album came off as generic\u00a0worldbeat, but with samples (“Merry Blues,”) but sort of warmed up and seemed to cover a lot of stylistic ground (reggae, jazz, rock, latin, etc)–albeit in a loping way, low-key way. So, sort of like Joe … Continue reading RS #474: Manu Chao, Proxima Estacion: Esperanza<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36,10,90,88,89,9],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-3-stars","tag-first-time-listen","tag-latin","tag-manu-chao","tag-reggae","tag-unowned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}