Apparently, my copy of the vinyl record compilation of The Chills early singles, called
currently gathering dust in Austex, is worth $70. I always liked their ethereal pop music, a shame so much of it is out of print.
“Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills” (The Chills)
Joshua Klein writes:
The Chills: Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills: Pitchfork Record Review:
For a while there, nearly the entire Flying Nun stable made it all look so easy. Album after album of perfect antipodean indie-pop, the product of fertile imaginations and far too much free time in a country that hadn't really shown up on the Western radar since tiny New Zealand lost more fighter pilots per capita during World War II than any other nation in the British Commonwealth. For a minute even the major labels were interested, snatching up acts like the Bats, Straightjacket Fits, the Verlaines, and the Chills before realizing that signing them was a lot easier than selling them.
The Chills' Martin Phillipps was among the most idiosyncratic of the batch, capable of both rousing rock and breathtaking beauty. Maybe he understood that best of all, which explains why the 1990 album Submarine Bells led with the facetiously titled “Heavenly Pop Hit”, which was certainly two of those things. As for being a hit, well, it never stood a chance. “It's a heavenly pop hit, if anyone wants it,” Phillipps sang almost offhandedly, over music so wonderful it's no wonder no radio station dared touch it: it would have made nearly everything else sound bad by comparison.
Still, as the closest thing Phillipps ever came to a hit, “Heavenly Pop Hit” was, of course, the track pegged to start this 1995 best-of, released on Flying Nun as a stopgap while Phillipps was between international record labels. But there was plenty more where that song came from-- Phillipps was full of them-- and Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills rounds up many of them for those who may not have any of the band's previous albums or collections, and who may be dismayed at the difficulty of procuring said out of print or domestically unreleased albums in the States (as of this writing, the impeccable early singles comp Kaleidoscope World was going for nearly $70 on Amazon).
...As for the inevitable missing stuff, where's “Effloresce and Deliquesce” and the gorgeous title track from Submarine Bells? Or “Background Affair”, from Soft Bomb? Or, hell, where's that disc's “Song for Randy Newman, etc.”, which name-checks Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Scott Walker, and Nick Drake as Phillipps documents the trials of the cult artist who dares tilt at windmills. “People take so much then leave you lean,” Phillipps sings, wistfully, at once in awe of his idols and all too aware that he will likely share the same critics-darling fate. “Patrons will not feed you longer than they need to/ Your all-consuming passion will leave you craving love.”
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