Radio KAOS --- Roger Waters --- 1987 (EMI)
One of the finest solo albums released by Roger Waters, Radio KAOS is at once a concept album, a comment on the arms race and a tribute to his father. His second solo effort, it concentrates on two main characters, one of which is really peripheral: two brothers, Benny, an unemployed coalminer and Billy, who is mentally disabled. The brothers go on a booze-up one night, after which Benny drops a breeze-block onto the motorway and, it would seem, kills or injures a motorist in the process, for which he is sent to jail. Unable to cope with her disabled son alone, Billy's mother sends him to live with his uncle in LA.
The narrative of the album begins in LA, as Billy describes to a radio DJ his experiences, and being somehow able to channel and receive radio waves through his stolen cellphone (come on, this
is Roger Waters, after all!), he becomes something of a celebrity. His voice on the album is routed through a vocoder, so that it sounds robotic and metallic (think Prof Stephen Hawking), and the album tracks are connected by snippets of his ongoing interview with the DJ at Radio KAOS.
The opening track, “Radio waves”, starts with Billy telling the DJ he hears radio waves in his head, and the DJ responding incredulously. The track is a bouncy, boppy number, plenty of guitar and warbling keyboard, as Water talks about the state of the world:
”The atmosphere is thin and cold/ The yellow sun is gettin' old/ The ozone overflows/ With radio waves/ AM, FM, weather and news/ Our leaders had a “frank exchange of views”/ I get confused.” The song introduces
”Magic Billy/ In his wheelchair” and explains that he picks up radio waves in his head. Great guitars from Andy Fairweather-Low, and that great scream from “The Wall” is worked into the song too. Great opener.
In true concept album style, the narrative continues as one song flows to another, so that there is no dead air as the story unfolds. In “Who needs information” Billy is introduced formally as a caller on the line, and synthesisers and male backing vocals recreate the sound of a Welsh male voice choir, mentoned later. In fact, when I first heard this album I thought Waters had employed the services of an actual choir on it, but it seems not. “Who needs information” is a slower song, with great backing vocals and saxophone from Mel Collins. It relates the pub crawl Billy and his brother went on, and the incident that landed Benny in jail and left Billy on his own. Great trumpet and trombone section on this too.
“Me or him” seems to be Benny's confession to a priest in jail about dropping the concrete slab on the motorway, and for some reason he seems to think it was a case of him or the other guy. This is a much slower song, almost a ballad, and its theme would be revisited in part on “Amused to death”, where Waters talks about the emergence of Man and civilisation. Here, he sings
”You wake up in the morning/ Get something for the pot/ Wonder why the sun makes the rocks so hot …/ Then some damn fool/ Invents the wheel/ Listen to the whitewalls squeal/ You spend all day looking for a parking spot/ Nothing for the heart/ Nothing for the pot.”
It's unclear in the lyric whether Billy
has now his own radio show, or whether he just wishes he has one. I think the latter. Again, Waters uses the double-vocal that he utilised on “The Wall” here, where he sings normally, and in the background he screams the same lyric. Always very effective, and very Roger Waters. As ever, he uses backing tracks and snippets of newscasts and other media here to build up the picture. The tempo then jumps for “The Powers That Be”, where Waters vents his anger at the Suits, the shadowy figures who run the world and whose faces we never see.
”They're the Powers That Be/ If you see them comin'/ You better run/ You better run on home!” Lots of keyboard in this, but the guitars make it an angry indictment, growling away behind Waters' impassioned and acid-tongued vocals. Great backing vocals too. The brass section really makes this track though, trumpets, sax and trombone giving it a false upbeat feel.
“Sunset Strip” is another boppy track, relating the circumtances which led to Billy's being sent to LA to his uncle. It's something of a funky number, with a totally weird section in it, where someone runs off a list of fish, while someone else says “I don't like fish!”. There are a lot of references to Wales and to mining in this song. The brass section really get going on this song, then we're into “Home”, featuring the vocal talents of Clare Torry, who you may remember as the incredible voice behind “The Great Gig in the Sky” from “Dark side of the Moon”. A mid-paced rocker, it asks the question what will you do when the end comes, and what will you do NOW to prevent that happening?
”Will you discreetly withdraw/ With your ear pressed to the boardroom door/ Will you hear when the lion within you roars?” Of course, the album is replete with anti-war rhetoric, like
”Could be the pilot/ With God on his side” or
”Could be a Vietnam vet/ With no arms and no legs.”
In the end, Billy manages to hack into the Department of Defence computer system and tricks everyone into thinking the missiles are about to be launched, leading into one of the most emotional songs on the album, with vocals again by Clare Torry. “Four minutes” is a lament for that which is passing, as the Earth awaits the end. The simple things, like the feeling you get from running a red light, or the simple love of another person. As Waters sings
”After a near miss on a plane/ You swear you'll never fly again/ After the first kiss after you make up/ You swear you'll never break up again.” you really feel the pent-up emotion leaking out. Powerful vocal chorus helps to underline the drama of this track, while in the background Billy does a countdown, as Margaret Thatcher declares
”Our own independent nuclear deterrent/ Has helped to keep the peace/ For nearly forty years!”
Everything comes to a head, with a final “Goodbye”, and then, when the world is
not destroyed, people come out of their houses and realise that they have had the nearest of near misses, and begin to talk to each other, and love spreads across the world, to the backing of the final track, the exquisite “The tide is turning”, carried on keyboard and gentle percussion. Waters snaps
”Who is the strongest?/ Who is the best?/ Who holds the aces/ The East or the West?/ This is the crap/ Our children are learning.” And in the face of almost Armageddon, the world begins to think about more important things than profit, war and politics. It's a rose-tinted and over-optimistic view of what could happen, of course, but it's nice to consider. A great track, a semi-ballad, closing the album and bringing the story to its end. The track, and the album, end on a rousing chorus by the “Welsh male vocal choir”.
I always love listening to this album. Being a concept, it's one that you really can't listen to piecemeal, or one track here or there. It really needs to be experienced in one sitting to get the full power and majesty of the album, and the intelligent and creative writing of Roger Waters. It's a view of the world full of hope, and even if it were never to happen, we can dream that it would, can't we?
TRACKLISTING
1. Radio waves
2. Who needs information?
3. Me or him
4. The Powers That Be
5. Sunset Strip
6. Home
7. Four minutes
8. The tide is turning
Suggested further listening: “The pros and cons of hitch-hiking, “Amused to death”, and the double-live “In the flesh”