If you think ''world beat'' is code for ''weird-sounding foreign music that has nothing to do with my life,'' Manu Chao's third solo CD, La Radiolina, just might turn your thinking around a full 180. Like the Clash circa Sandinista!, this France-bred artist is in top form here, catapulting easily from rock to reggae to rai and into genres as yet uncharted (check out the bizarro spaghetti-Western hoedown ''Besoin de la Lune''). And though he sings mostly in French or Spanish, Chao's music is so sonically vivid, so gloriously evocative, translation seems almost superfluous.
Download This: Hear a clip of ''The Bleedin' Clown'' at barnesandnoble.com
