Artist · chart history · #827 in indie & aaa artist polls
Starsailor
Band Wigan United Kingdom Formed 2000
Starsailor formed in 2000 in Wigan, United Kingdom. Starsailor has 25 chart appearances on 25 radio countdowns from 12 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2018. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Good Souls”, which appears on 8 lists with a best position of #34. The station that charted Starsailor most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 7 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2002.
Starsailor came out of Wigan in 2000 as part of the post-Britpop wave that swapped swagger for heartache, and they were built around one thing above all: James Walsh's voice, a tremulous, soaring instrument that could make a lovelorn verse feel like a matter of life and death. Walsh played guitar and sang, James Stelfox held down the bass, Ben Byrne drummed and Barry Westhead's piano gave the songs their rolling, churchy warmth.
Love Is Here, their 2001 debut, set the template with "Good Souls" and "Poor Misguided Fool", slow-building ballads that swell to big, bruised choruses. Silence Is Easy in 2003 opened things up: its title track became a UK top-ten single, and "Four to the Floor" went all the way to number one in France and into the top five in Australia. On the Outside in 2005 brought the taut, urgent "In the Crossfire", and All the Plans followed in 2009 with "Tell Me It's Not Over". All told they racked up ten UK top 40 singles for EMI and Virgin.
After All the Plans the band went on a long break while its members pursued their own projects, then announced their return in May 2014. A greatest-hits set named after "Good Souls" arrived in 2015, and All This Life and Where the Wild Things Grow have followed since.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Starsailor on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Good Souls | 8 | #34 | – | 2002 | |
| 2 | In the Crossfire | 10 | #51 | – | 2006 | |
| 3 | Silence Is Easy | 2 | #153 | – | 2004 | |
| 4 | Four to the Floor (remix) | 1 | #70 | – | 2004 | |
| 5 | Tell me it's not over | 1 | #25 | – | 2009 | |
| 6 | Poor Misguided Fool | 1 | #99 | – | 2002 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Starsailor.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.