Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms - 1985

 

After four increasingly successful albums (particularly Making Movies) Dire Straits managed to move with this one release into the stratosphere. 

It seemed that in the summer of 1985 everybody had to have this album, including people who didn't have much else in their collections. What's more within a year or two, everyone had to have it on CD, the new medium for music. Dire Straits became the flagship CD band, to be played in hi-fi showrooms everywhere as the definitive example of perfect digital sound. As someone who had really liked their previous albums, I eagerly waited this one, but it slightly disappointed me at the time and indeed continues to do so. Like the most commercially successful and globally popular release  from many other artists (Sgt. Pepper, Born In The USA, Thriller, Exodus....), it is not my favourite, not by a long way.

Anyway, to the songs, many of which are now Radio Two standards.

Opening with the country-ish rock of So Far Away, we soon realise that there aren't going to be too many iconic Mark Knopfler guitar soloes on here, and a more folky, rockabilly vibe is now the order of the day, exemplified by the twangy lead guitar throughout this sleepy but extremely catchy track. 

Next up is a song that has always irritated me a bit in Money For Nothing. Introduced by an unaccompanied Sting vocal (he happened to be in the same studio on the island of Montserrat at the time), the song has an infectious heavy rock signature riff and some wryly cynical lyrics about the easy money to be made in the music industry, something that no doubt had often irked the one-time journeyman musician in Knopfler. Despite latter-day controversy concerning the lyric "that little faggot he's a millionaire" . I see nothing wrong with it, Knopfler is singing in character, more bothered about his target's perceived lack of talent than his supposed sexuality. Too much of a fuss about absolutely nothing. It is hardly like a ragga homophobic rant, is it? For God's sake. As they say in cliché world - lighten up, people. Anyway, for some reason, the song has never been a favourite of mine, despite its obvious instant appeal.

I am more of a fan of the blatantly commercial, fairground joie de vivre of Walk Of Life, with is cheesy organ riff. Yes, we've all heard it a thousand times, so it requires no further comment, other than to say it is the album's poppiest moment, by a long way. A more solemn ambience is delivered in Your Latest Trick, a track I have always liked, with its typically low-key Knopfler vocals and appealing brass parts. Good track. The old side one ends with the somnambulant and virtually walking pace ballad Why Worry. While a nice song, it goes on a tad too long and is just a bit too comatose for my liking.

The excellent and powerful Ride Across The River contains the only archetypal Knopfler guitar solo, and only just too. As I said, this album contained no Tunnel Of Love, Sultans Of Swing or Telegraph Road, much to my disappointment at the time. It is a solid and muscular offering however and this is continued on the next two tracks - the decidedly uncommercial, bluesy grinders The Man's Too Strong - a folky Dylanesque number featuring some mightily powerful guitar interjections - and the robust One World, both of which deal with militarism and express a general level of disillusion with world politics, undeserved power and corruption at the top.

A cornerstone of the album is another quiet, moving number in the sensitive Brothers In Arms, which has become one of the great anti-war songs, while at the same time recognising the sacrifice of those unfortunately involved in conflicts. It matches Why Worry for its whispering vocal, but therein lies its strength, Knopfler at times sounding as if he is having trouble getting the words out, so moved is he. These final three tracks provided a point to Knopfler's subsequent solo work. It is this part of the album that I return to more often these days. 

Ironically, this monster of an album began to sound the death knell for Dire Straits. The media and some of the public seemed to turn against them, dusting off their "dinosaur" epithets. It would be six years before they would release another album. Oh, and Mark looked decidedly silly with that headband around his balding head at Live Aid, didn't he?