Radio K.A.O.S.

Radio KAOS (Slovenia) and KAOS FM (Olympia, WA) are also real radio stations.

Radio K.A.O.S. is a 1987 concept album by former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters. It was his second solo album.

Storyline

The concept is based around a 23 year old disabled man from Wales named Billy. Waters' original concept called for a much stronger narrative element to the music, but he abandoned this as recording progressed, explaining the storyline in the liner notes instead; the storyline cannot be easily deduced from the music alone.

Billy is confined to a wheelchair and is thought to be 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 (how a wheelchair-bound presumptive vegetable can go on a pub crawl is not explained) 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 sister-in-law 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 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.

Track listing

"Radio Waves" - 4:58
"Who Needs Information" - 5:55
"Me or Him" - 5:23
"Powers That Be" - 4:36
"Sunset Strip" - 4:45
"Home" - 6:00
"Four Minutes" - 4:00
"The Tide Is Turning (After Live Aid)" - 5:43

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 sister-in-law 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 sister-in-law back in Wales.

The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in August of 1998.

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.

The Morse code on the cover decodes to "Roger Waters Radio KAOS Who Needs Information Th". The initial compact disc release included a "Radio KAOS" title logo that was only a sticker on the outside of the shrinkwrap of the LP, which displayed only the Morse code. On recent rereleases, the Morse code on the inside cover and underneath the CD tray reads "E Powers T Home The Tide Is Turning Radio Waves".

The album contains 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 "Tide is Turning". (It concerns Waters' dislike of the way Sylvester Stallone movies glorify violent actions.)

The album is a full digital recording. It was state-of-the-art for 1987, although some aspects of the recording today sound dated (especially the bass sequencing and drums).

Waters performed "The Tide Is Turning" as the full-cast closing number at his 1990 The Wall Live in Berlin concert at the site of the Berlin Wall.

In the manga series Battle Angel Alita, one of the characters, Kaos, runs a pirate radio station named after Radio K.A.O.S.

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Year	Chart	Position
1987	The Billboard 200	51