A constructive view

[mosespa]

Radio Kaos * (honestly)



yet i've only heard this album 3 times and onece just to write this review...

Go back and listen to it again...about twenty more times...then come back and write an actual review rather than a piece simply complaining about an album that you haven't given a decent amount of time to.

I don't expect your feelings about the album to change, however, I suspect that listening to it another twenty times should give you something to say other than you don't like eighties techno music. (This is almost the only consistent complaint from anyone about this album...get over the music already. Would you still be complaining if he simply glommed the Floyd sound?)

This feels strangely out of character and presents one of our problems. Unlike the Pink Floyd albums (including to a degree AMLOR) this album could have been made by anyone and includes none of Roger's standard depth and originality. The only song that stands out is Four Minutes which is a gem, however, nothing else of it can stand up to TPACOHH and ultimatly the album contains to much techno styled music, and although this is to fit the concept, what sort of a concept should rely on bad music?

How about a concept which tries to demonstrate that formulaic music isn't a good idea? Or a concept which has a renegade DJ trying as best as he can to adapt to a changing, alien musical scene? Although I prefer the first notion.

Next problem, none of the songs except Fpur Minutes are good. I seriously do think A New Machine could have been put on this album and it wouldn't be the worst song. All the songs are uninspired, boring, totally 80's, to repetitive and stick to much to the radio concept rather than actually being good songs. the album no longer carries the concept, the concept now carries the album.?

I think Four Minutes is one of the weaker songs on the album. Here, again, the only real complaint that you have about the music is that it sounds too "eighties"...I won't even touch your comment about "repetitive" since you don't appear to realize how repetitive ABITW Part 2 is.

I'm curious to know what you think about the fact that Roger tried to take a concept which would probably have required at least a second album to fully explain and boiled it down (as best as he could) to eight songs...no easy feat.

Imagine The Wall reduced to eight songs. Would it be as good of an album as it is?

Imagine DSOTM reduced to a single or two...would it still be on Billboards charts today? Not if On The Run was an A-side, I'm pretty certain.

Of course, this does nothing for the eight songs that were in fact released.

Granted, the first time I ever heard Radio Waves, I wondered what Roger thought he was doing. However, I bought the cassette and gave it a listen beginning to end, as one should anything that Roger has done since 1972, and felt that it was a pretty good album given that the storyline was kind of hard to follow even with the included libretto.

However, I think that the story Roger wanted to tell is about as worthy as anything else he's ever wanted to say. I think that giving the music a contemporary feel helped illustrate the predicament of the DJ in the story...and I actually like the music, I wish Roger had done a sequel to KAOS in the same musical vein.

[Spinoza]

I admit that its mostly subjective, but i simply don't like R KAOS musical Style, although the concept and the lyrics are great. Even The Tide is Turning could have been better, with more music in it, like Two Suns In The Sunset.

[David Smith]

Ok, i barely know how to use quotations so this will probably seem quite random.

3 times is enough to decide how good an album is. I hated the album after the first listen and it hasn't changed yet. If you listen to any album enough you're capable of loving it. If you don't like an album first time though, not even a bit, then what are the chances of you likeing it honestly?

Oh, wait, that's irrelivant, i just read your next paragraph. But again, listen to an album loads of times and you convince yourself it defies genres. I wouldn't complain if it souded like floyd because i feel he has the right to sound similar.

Now this is what i can't beleive. "get over the music" as i said in another thread i value music over concept by far.

The concept does carry the album. I don't think that can be denied.

Oh, and good of you to assume i like ABITW 2. Thanks for guessing i'm some uneducated little git that can't tell good music from bad music. Yeah i think that's a repetitive song to, and guess what... I don't like it either.

Ok, he took it down to 8 songs, wow, i'm impressed, but again, should he not have decided to put good music on it. What's more boring and less original than the a piece of synth techno rock. i hate the genre and the music, good concept or crap conept it still comes down to the music, which is music i really don't like.

Oh and while we're on the topic, why did he only do 8 songs? he could have done much more if he wanted to.

The album is completly based around a concept of ever changing radio and mainstream rock rather than actually doing something thatn isn't mainstream rock. The music needs to comes first man. Could you imagine the song Mother with a 90 piece orchastra and people chanting "tear down the wall" over and over again. They could have appeared in the song but luckily they didn't because musical content was placed above concept.

[Richter_M.]

Two Suns In The Desert is a blissful song with so much wonder. This song is a pink floyd classic, and just as you think you've got it in comes Roger doing what he does best... Highpitched rants.

This rant is again a "Ranting Roger" classic that moves the listener backwards. So much force and passion, equally as good as Dave's work on Comfortably Numb. Finally, the song ends on an important message, that we may only be equal when we've reached the grave. Thanks Roger for making the most overly depressing statement ever.

I always took that line to mean that the biases and grudges we hold during life are pointless seeing as in the end (i.e. when it really matters) we're all equally...dead. To me, this balanced out the racial slurs and comments present not only on TFC but on The Wall as well. That's just my opinion though. Yours is quite interesting too, and it does make the whole album almost unbearably depressing...but still a kick-arse album IMO.

[David Smith]

The reason i thought of it that way was cause i had just had to read bloody hamlet and Shakespeare makes a similar point that no matter how much dgnity and power we have we're all going to reach the same place in the end. We're all just going to be burried and turn to rotten corpses.

[mosespa]

Could you imagine the song Mother with a 90 piece orchastra and people chanting "tear down the wall" over and over again. They could have appeared in the song but luckily they didn't because musical content was placed above concept.

Yes, I can...with the 90 piece orchestra, it might sound like the movie version.

As for the people chanting "tear down the wall," well...that would mess up the concept, now wouldn't it? I mean, in the song Mother, the wall isn't even really finished yet, so what would be the point in having people chanting "tear down the wall?"

I still fail to understand everyone's problem with the music of this album...is it really that different than the "porno" sections of Echoes and SOYCD? I mean outside of the fact that KAOS turns that porno groove into legitamate SONGS.

Granted, some of the songs are pretty weak, like Me or Him and Four Minutes...but The Powers That Be is kick ass...as is Who Needs Information and Home.

Let me ask you this...if this album were made with Nick Mason playing his simplistic drum parts and Rick Wright sustaining organ chords and occasionally changing a couple of notes and Gilmour rocking the Strat, would you like the music better?

I mean, if the chord progressions and melody remained the same, but the Floydian touch was added, would you like this album better?

Just curious.

[David Smith]

I would like the album better if it was a different genre. More prog rock and less mainstream dance/ glam rock. The fact that it lacked the pink floyd feel is for me the same problem with AMLOR. It wasn't new and original and more just conformitive music that was used to help the old rockers fit iin with mainstream music.

That Mother example was actually really bad and i thought of it on the spot cause was in a rush. What i was trying to say is that on the best pink floyd work the music came the concept and that's definitly better. I feel like TPACOHH, RK would have worked better as a film or a novel rather than an album because the points it raises e.t.c just in now way justify the dire music.

I wouldn't have preferred it as a floyd album, i would say i preffered AMLOR because it atleast stayed close to an original sound without to much of a reliance on concept and drum machines/ synthesisers.