The Church - Starfish POLL

Bimble, I hate you. This is one of my five favorite albums of all time and every song is FIVE STARS!

That said, I have the softest spot for "A New Season"...I think. Yeah, I'll go with that.

Heheh. I love being hated sometimes..."A New Season" is fucking killer, too. Do you like the version on one of those El Momento discs?

I've only heard one of the El Momento discs, and that was only one time. So who knows. I can't remember.

Well, it's as good a version as the original, I reckon.

"It's not a religion, it's just a TV" doesn't quite rank down there with "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier," but it still exudes a minor odor. Still, "Destination" for me.

"It's not a religion, it's just a TV"

"... just a technique", surely?

it has to be reptile

My order of greatness would be:

"Reptile"
"North, South, East & West"
"Hotel Womb"
"Destination"
"Under The Milky Way"

Def. voting for "Reptile".

"Destination" in a heartbeat. One of the best opening tracks evah!

it has to be reptile

yes.

I like how "Reptile" manages to predict both The Cure's Disintegration and The House of Love.

wow, that's a bold statement! :)

I think any similarity is coincidental.

Still don't own this!

FIX THAT.

It was actually "Reptile" rather than "Under the Milky Way" which really got me into the band in the first place. I'm instantly flashing back to hearing it coming out of the radio while I was mowing the lawn back in senior year of high school.

"reptile" is one of the few songs that ever made me make an instant detour to a record store. and it wasn't even hearing it on the radio. i had had the album on cassette and had not upgraded to cd, probably hadn't heard it in 5 years or so, and "reptile" just came into my head one evening after work and i went and bought it immediately.

I adore both of the big radio singles. No longer am I surprised that Waddy Watchel produced this record; "Under the Milky Way" is an excellent attempt at L.A. space rock.

It's a perfect collision of aesthetics -- shows that 'selling out' is by no means always a disaster.

"Milky Way" got me into the band (I remembered the video with the eyeball in the soupbowl or something like that), "Reptile" made me buy the album.

All ten tracks keep me listening to it 20 years later.

a true but lamentable fact is that a band i was in my freshman year of college did a reggae version of "under the milky way."

milky riddims.

I would've quit a band that did a reggae version of anything.

Even if it was a reggae band to start with?

oh you should have heard the funk version of "no new tale to tell"...

i've listened to hotel womb like 20 times in the past few days

so yeah that one

Reptile! Under the Milky Way was a great gateway for me (and so many others), but it's got to be Reptile.

what a great album. was a pretty big fan of their stuff before but this album made me fall in love with them. picking a song is so hard but there is no denying the brilliance of "Reptile."

Tispy, you tease me with promised reggae and funk covers! Damn you!

Argh argh argh, too hard, too hard. So we're not allowed to vote for Under The Milky Way, even if we know and love the whole album?

Actually, I'm going to go for Hotel Womb because I have a real *thing* for long, psychedelic Church outro songs - almost invariably they save the most psychedelic song for the last track, so they can go to town on the rave-up at the end (it's not a good Church song unless Peter gets 2 solos for every 1 of Marty's.)

Reptile.

it's not a good Church song unless Peter gets 2 solos for every 1 of Marty's.

^^^^^^^ OTM ^^^^^^

Embarrassment of riches to choose from here... "Destination" or "Hotel Womb" are my immediate choices. "Antenna" because it's a waltz and has David Lindley on mandolin. "North, South, East, & West" because there's a great story on how the band came up with the song during a soundcheck after cheerfully accosting a fan somewhere in Texas. "Under The Milky Way" because it's one of the weirder songs to be a hit.

"Destination", the first song I heard from my first Church album: such a huge shock.

this is currently the longest-surviving CD in my collection...congrats, The Church...way to hang in there!

so, we're like twenty years on now?...ain't it time for one of them Legacy Editions?

...and I'm not even sure it's in my top 5 Church albums...

Tispy, you tease me with promised reggae and funk covers! Damn you!

let's just say we did posterity a favor by not preserving them.

ain't it time for one of them Legacy Editions?

Pretty much all the albums up through the mid-nineties have been reissued in recent years, with bonus tracks etc.

Yeah, the 2-disc reissue of Starfish is veddy nice.

I have always loved listening to this record when driving at night.

since i voted today it is "reptile",although if i had to vote tomorrow it would be something else [i'm sure].

I have always loved listening to this record when driving at night.

I have a memory of taking Gold Afternoon Fix and Heydey out on a road trip. They worked really nice for that as well.

I paid 80 dollars for this wedding ring

I couldn't take it off if I tried.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Reptile vs. Under the Milky Way... any predictions as to the final score?

Yeah, the 2-disc reissue of Starfish is veddy nice.

Ya think? I wasn't at all happy with it. The remaster is, to my ears, too bright. And on the Priest = Aura remaster, Aura is distorted in places, and not in the good way.

it's not a good Church song unless Peter gets 2 solos for every 1 of Marty's

The Church are the only band I know of whose original lead guitarist eventually ended up in the rhythm role, leaving his understudy to perform most of the solos.
On the first couple of albums, Peter plays a bunch of conventionally accomplished (and excellent) solos, but after that, it seems he gradually became more interested in texture. This change in focus coincided with a growth in Marty's abilities, which lead to him becoming the de facto lead player by Gold Afternoon Fix.
Ten or eleven years ago, I saw Steve and Marty do an unplugged-type show. Although it is sadly captured only in mental amber, one of my favorite musical moments remains the solo Marty took during Hotel Womb. Armed only with a 12-string acoustic and a Boss distortion pedal, he made the most beautiful racket I've ever heard outside of a My Bloody Valentine record.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow, never saw that tie coming.

I'm kinda relieved Blood Money didn't get any votes. It is the only dull spot on an otherwise impeccable record - though the lyrics do amuse me enough that I don't actually skip over it. "He says... well you accept mah... CARD?"

Yeah I felt "Blood Money" & "Lost" were the real red herrings on this record (though I won't say they were altogether BAD songs). They were enough of a detour to throw me off listening to the second side of the record for a year or two. But oh god, once I finally heard the second side...

My only complaint is that "Spark" has lost a little something over the years...wish I could hear that song again for the first time.

I'm going to play Priest=Aura right now from beginning to end and it's all ILM's fault. I might even delve into the bonus b-side tracks which I love.

As for the poll results? Ah, they're kinda nice and symmetrical, eh? Like glittering jewelry. I dig.

I mean, when Hotel Womb gets the same amount of votes as NSEW, you know you've got a lovely poll for that alone.

Haha -- I heard "Under the Milky Way" at the supermarket today!

To expand on what I wrote earlier: it occurred to me that, far from being the incongruous-by-design choice that it seems, Waddy Watchel's production suits the kind of song that Stevie Nicks might have wrote and sung. The unexpected segue from verse to chorus is Nicks-ian.

Alfred, there's a song I was thinking of just a moment ago that I want you to hear.

I thought "I want Alfred to hear this". But I couldn't get it together at the time. I'll send it to you.

apparently Greg Ladanyi (producer of this album and a couple of others you might know) slipped & fell while in greece (seriously no pun intended) and is in a coma..

:(

Strange thread to mention Ladanyi on as he pretty much hated The Church and vice versa. Kilbey on the recording of it: http://stevekilbey.blogspot.com/2006/12/sel-fish.html

Wow, that's really kind of nightmarish. I had no idea.

I listened to "Night Sequence" from Back with Two Beasts during my run this evening and it was like one of Kilbey's blog posts set to music.

Ladanyi has died

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC6wlETno3Y

It's a perfect collision of aesthetics -- shows that 'selling out' is by no means always a disaster.

One morning this week, I heard "Baker Street" and "...Milky Way" about ten minutes apart. The timing of Wachtel's involvement is significant; what's "Under The Milky Way" but another end-of-decade rumination exactly ten years after Gerry Rafferty's hit?

Ran across a nice vinyl copy of this, sounds absolutely gorgeous

Lost was robbed.

Dang I love every song on this album. I got it around the same time as Replacements DTAS and the photos of the band always sorta reminded me of each other even though the bands are super different. The images are as burned into my mind as all the songs are.