Radio K.A.O.S.
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| Radio K.A.O.S. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Missing image RogerWaters-album-radiokaos.jpg Album cover | ||
| Album by Roger Waters | ||
| Released | 1987 | |
| Recorded | ??? | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | min 41:24 sec | |
| Record label | ?? | |
| Producer | ?? | |
| Professional reviews | ||
| Roger Waters Chronology | ||
| When the Wind Blows (1986) (movie soundtrack) | Radio K.A.O.S. (1987) | The Wall Live in Berlin (1990) |
Radio K.A.O.S. is a concept album album by Roger Waters. The concept is based around a 23 year old disabled man from Wales named Billy. Billy is confined to a wheelchair and is apparently a vegetable. However, Billy is highly intelligent but has no way of expressing himself. Billy has a twin brother Benny, who is a coal miner. Unfortunately, Benny has lost his job in the mines due to the "market forces". One night, Benny and Billy are out on a pub crawl when they pass a shop full of TV screens broadcasting Margaret Thatcher's "mocking condescension". Benny vents his anger on this shop and steals a cordless phone. Next, in theatrical fashion, Benny poses on a footbridge in protest to the closures; the same night, a taxi driver is killed by a concrete block dropped from a similar bridge. The police question Benny, who hides the phone in Billy's wheelchair. Benny is taken to prison, and this is when Billy discovers that he can receive radio waves (title of track 1) via this phone. He contacts a radio station in L.A. named Radio KAOS (album title) and tells them of his life story about his brother being in jail ("Me or Him" track 3), about his mother not being to cope and sending him to L.A. to live with his uncle Dave ("Sunset Strip" track 5), and about the closures of the mines ("Powers that Be" track 4). Billy eventually hacks in to a military satellite and fools the world in to thinking nuclear ICBMs are about to be detonated at major cities all over the world ("Home" track 6 and "Four Minutes" track 7). The album concludes with a song about how everyone, in thinking they were about to die, realises that the fear and competitiveness peddled by the mass media is much less important than their love for family and the larger community. ("The Tide is Turning" track 8).
The album contains some easter eggs. The most well known of these is the morse code message at the beginning and end of the album. This is the "hidden verse" of "The Tide is Turning". (It concerns Waters' dislike of the way Sylvester Stallone movies glorify violent actions.)
There are three other songs that were written for this album, but were only played live or released on singles. "Going to Live in L.A." told of how Benny was sent to jail, his mother Molly could not cope and so sent him to live with his uncle Dave. "Get Back to Radio" was told from Benny's perspective behind bars about how lonely he is. "Molly's Song" is Billy's tale of how he can hack in to government satellites to watch over Molly, his mother back in Wales.
Although strange in concept, this album has some major underlying political themes, and as with all of Waters' lyrics, has a strong message. The album is dedicated "to all those who find themselves at the violent end of monetarism." This and other moments in the album--such as a segment juxtaposing a Ronald Reagan campaign slogan with clips from an old western TV show and an apparent recorded plea from American hostages not to engage in "heroics" to free them--make Waters' political point of view quite clear. In addition, although some aspects of the recording sound dated (especially the bass sequencing and drums), the complexity of the soundscapes on the album is astounding--the record has several themes and plots that only reveal themselves upon multiple listens.
Trivia
KAOS is the callsign of a real radio station, a noncommercial station that broadcasts from the campus of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.