Album · The Church
Starfish by The Church
Starfish is an album by The Church, released in 1988. 4 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 111 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Under the Milky Way”, on 85 lists with a best position of #3.
Starfish, the Church's fifth album, arrived in February 1988, on Mushroom at home in Australia and on Arista everywhere else, and it's the record that carried this cult band out into the wider world. Waddy Wachtel produced, and the lineup was Steve Kilbey on bass and vocals, Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper on guitars and Richard Ploog on drums.
It's a dreamy, gauzy thing, all chiming, interlaced guitars and Kilbey's cool, far-away murmur, psychedelia filtered through smoke and moonlight. "Under the Milky Way" is the jewel, a slow, hypnotic, star-gazing drift that became their calling card and got the band noticed in America, where it made the Hot 100 and went to number two on the Mainstream Rock chart. "Reptile" is its tougher twin, all coiled, slithering guitar lines, and "Destination" and "Spark" round things out with a darker hum.
It went gold in America, selling 600,000 copies there alone, and it's still the biggest seller the Church ever had.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Starfish on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Under the Milky Way#358 of all time | 85 | #3 | – | 1988–2026 | |
| 2 | Reptile | 24 | #13 | – | 1988–2023 | |
| 3 | Spark | 1 | #1215 | – | 2003 | |
| 4 | Destination | 1 | #527 | – | 2024 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.