Roger Waters - Radio K.A.O.S (KAOS)

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According to https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/2 ... er-waters/, Radio Waves got to No. 74, and The Tide is Turning got to No. 54. By 'hit' I meant a bit higher in the charts. The album did better getting to No. 25, but again I meant a better chart placing than that. All his subsequent original albums did much better.

You are absolutely right, but those were rather different times. A radio stations played songs from a new albums completely on their own. By their own choice. Many songs were never realized as singles at all, but they were constantly played on the meny different radio stations and become hits. It was similar with music TV channels, especially MTV. What's more, many songs would first become popular on the MTV, and only after then be released as a singles. I remember that Radio Waves and Learning To Fly from AMLOR aired on MTV every day. Especially Learning To Fly. Every two hours.

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"Payola" has been around since the 1930s and is still in practice today. Record companies did it with MTV as well, which had been around for six years at that point. If "Learning to Fly" and "Radio Waves" were getting equal airtime, it certainly wasn't based on sales.

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If "Learning to Fly" and "Radio Waves" were getting equal airtime, it certainly wasn't based on sales.

A lot of songs played frequent at the time had nothing to do with sales or chart positions. If I'm not mistaken MTV was running 24 hours a day. What stuck in my mind the most was Peter Gabriel's video and his song 'Sledgehammer', and 'Learning to Fly' by Pink Floyd. Radio Waves aired often a couple of months before the release of AMLOR, but less frequently thereafter.,