Albums Revisited: The Church’s ‘Starfish’ Turns 30: a look back at The Church’s breakthrough album featuring their timeless hit ‘Under The Milky Way.’
How is that one stumbles upon one of their favorite bands? Is it fate? Do you choose the band, or does the band choose you? I wonder those things sometimes.
I still haven’t figured it out. But what I can say is that The Church became one of my favorite bands in 1988. And I have Starfish to thank for it.
Starfish celebrates its 30th (?!?)anniversary this Friday (where has the time gone?). It’s the album that finally pushed the Australian neo-psych/alternative rockers from college radio into the mainstream.
While I had heard of the band a few years before (catching Tantalized on120 Minutes, and seeing the band in a brief interview in a MTV segment discussing alternative Aussie acts), it was Under The Milky Way, that bowled me over and made me hungry for more.
Starfish saw the band work in L.A. with producers Greg Ladanyi and Waddy Wachtel, and friction was immediate, according to frontman and bassist Steve Kilbey, who said in an interview: It was Australian hippies versus West Coast guys who know the way they like to do things. We were a bit more undisciplined than they would have liked.
Click here for my 2017 interview with Steve Kilbey
Kilbey added the band felt isolated in their temporary home: I hated where I was living…I hate that there’s no one walking on the streets and I missed my home. All the billboards, conversations I’d overhear, TV shows, everything that was happening to us was going into the music.
His temporary digs may have been unpleasant, but it certainly paid off creatively.
The first single from Starfish changed everything–Under The Milky Way (written by Kilbey and his ex-girlfriend Karin Jansson) was inescapable in 1988. Its memorable video was on MTV constantly, and it was even played on classic rock stations. It was a crossover hit in every sense of the word.
It hit #22 on the U.S. Billboard charts, and cast a dusky spell on everyone who heard it, with enigmatic lyrics that captured the imagination (Wish I knew what you were looking for/Might have known what you would find).
Kilbey has oft been indifferent to Milky Way’s success over the years (he once called it flat, lifeless and sterile), stating in his book Something Quite Peculiar that Our manager got hold of it, and he was saying, ‘You’ve got to do it, you’ve got to do it!’ and he kept hounding the producers when we were recording…So it was very reluctantly recorded…But then the label people spotted it, and it’s like having a game of poker after you’ve been playing poker for a long time and then suddenly all the fucking cards fall into place…”
Kilbey further reflected on the hit in 2011, joking that I’ve written 2000 songs. Thank God one of them came through! The others aren’t pulling their weight. They sit and grumble about ‘Under the Milky Way’ and I say, ‘Well, boys, go out and earn the same dough as that one’.
His frustration is understandable, and shared by fans, who know the band is so much more than their big hit (they’ve released 26 studio albums, including last year’s excellent Man Woman Life Death Infinity). Likewise, Starfish isn’t just one song and a bunch of filler–it’s solid from start to finish. And fans like myself dove into the deep cuts.
Kilbey’s agitation with his time in L.A. feels palpable on the eerie album opener Destination, a bleak and beautiful Pink Floyd-esque number that had him ruminating in his inimitable stream of consciousness style: In the space between our cities/A storm is slowly forming/Something eating up our days/I feel it every morning.
Likewise, Lost (my personal favorite from the album) hones in on his homesickness, with wonderful lines like If you’re alone and you’re feeling blue/Everyone in Persia probably feels like that too/I just hope they don’t believe like you do, played out over languid crystalline guitar arpeggios.
Speaking of guitars, one can’t wax poetic on Starfish without discussing the contributions from guitarists Peter Koppes and (former band mate) Marty Willson-Piper, whose seamless 6 and 12-string interplay is a textural delight throughout. It’s a more intimate experience than 1985’s Heyday, which featured a full orchestral backdrop. From the haunting Blood Money to the clanging, atmospherics of North South East and West (and Milky Way’s unforgettable bagpipe-esque guitar solo), it’s a feast for the ears.
The album also showcased their vocals–Willson-Piper sings on the spry, ambling Spark, while Koppes takes singing duties on the soaring A New Season. Both songs are brighter and more upbeat than the rest of the album, yet don’t disrupt the overall aesthetic.
It’s also worth noting Under The Milky Way wasn’t the only single from Starfish. Reptile was up next, and it’s one of the band’s catchiest tunes, powered by an irresistible serpentine riff, throbbing bass and skittering percussion (from former drummer Richard Ploog). Kilbey’s silken croon is in fine form as he spins a tale of a cruel lover (I see you slither away with your skin and your tail/Your flickering tongue and your rattling scales).
The album closes with Hotel Womb. It’s become a fan favorite and it’s not hard to see why. It’s delicate, tiered arrangement is gorgeous, and Kilbey’s lyrics create cinematic images for the mind:
I paid eighty dollars for this wedding ring
I couldn’t take it off if I tried
And the cactus sure tastes strangely sweet
As it goes down inside.
When I think of Starfish I’m taken back to my high school days in Fort Worth, Texas, where music meant everything during clumsy adolescence. It was a permanent fixture in my car cassette player and my home stereo. I remember late night drives, chilling out with good friends, getting lulled to sleep, trying to impress girls with my improving musical tastes. I can’t downplay its impact.
Click here for The Church’s Gold Afternoon Fix Turns 25
I also vividly recall seeing the band on their Starfish tour with Peter Murphy in Dallas–an odd, yet dynamic pairing that apparently had some behind-the-scenes drama. It was uniquely marketed–you paid one lump sump for however many people you could stuff in a car. My friends and I rode for over an hour in a very cramped hatchback. It was worth it.
The band (and many diehard Church fans) have downplayed Starfish’s impact in favor of other high-watermarks, like their 1992 opus Priest=Aura and (the aforementioned) Heyday, among others.
Click here for The Church’s Priest=Aura turns 25
I won’t argue with that. But Starfish is the album that brought many into The Church’s congregation. It made me a fan for life. It’s a solid, timeless album that still holds up, with a soothing, rejuvenating energy. To paraphrase their biggest hit: I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I’m grateful for what I found. Happy 30th.
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