Dire Straits (Official Thread)

[Sharp Dressed Man]

^^Interesting the Alchemy Live album wasn't mentioned, "Telegraph Road" from Love Over Gold is a great song, though to hear it done Live I think makes it worthwhile having the Alchemy album as well even though it was on the Money For Nothing Compilation album, most people get the Alchemy album to also get the "Going Home - Theme From 'Local Hero'" as well.

Couldn't agree more. "Alchemy" is often overlooked when people talk about great live albums. Imo it's essential for Dire Straits fans.

 

[TheSound]

I'm quite a big fan of Dire Straits (and Mark Knopfler) - I first discovered the band age 13 when I heard Sultans of Swing on my dad's ''Money for Nothing'' CD - I was instantly drawn to this song and have considered it a personal favourite since. However, I did not really explore the band any further until just over a year ago when I heard ''Lady Writer'' on the radio - I liked the song a lot, which led to me exploring and downloading their studio albums.

My rankings of the albums I've heard:

1) Love Over Gold - This contains my favourite DS track, Telegraph Road, a true masterpiece which fully justifies its 14 minute+ length - I love pretty much everything about this song. It Never Rains is another personal favourite, with its epic guitar solo, and I really enjoy the atmospherics of the title track and ''Private Investigations''. I like ''Industrial Disease as well'', not as much as the other four as it sounds somewhat dated compared to the others, although I find the lyrics and the guitar compensate for this. Overall I regard this album as the band's peak as there are no clear weak points and I find it very enjoyable to listen from beginning to end.

2) the debut album - Excellent debut album with no really weak or obvious filler tracks. ''Sultans of Swing'' is a classic but it is far from being the album's only great track, I like ''In The Gallery'', ''Down To The Waterline'' and ''Water Of Love'' a lot as well. I must also mention ''Six Blade Knife'', which didn't grab me at first but has grown on me considerably - it's quite brilliant in a very unstated way. ''Southbound Again'' probably does least for me on here but I still think it's a decent track. One other thing I like about this album is that a lot of songs reference particular cities or locations, for example 'Down To The Waterline'' is set in Newcastle, ''Wild West End'' is in London etc.

3) Making Movies - I'm happy to listen to arguments that is DS's best studio album, I don't think there's an awful lot wrong with the first six tracks and it's probably the most dynamic album they have in terms of pacing. Side one of the original LP is fantastic, with ''Tunnel Of Love'', ''Romeo And Juliet'' and ''Skateaway'' all being great songs. I do like the first three songs on side two as well, and would probably pick ''Expresso Love'' as my favourite. However, it only comes third on my list due to the throwaway final track ''Les Boys'', which I am not too fond of (I think it's worse for being the last track on the album) - remove this and this album would be second on my list, replace it with a song to the standard of any of the tracks on side one and it might have been number one.

4) Communique - Although I only rank this fourth on my list, I find this album to be greatly underrated. I've widely seen this album dismissed as being boring or 'samey', which I find doesn't hold true for the most part. The classic DS guitar sound is definitely present, which I find very warm and pleasing throughout this album I am especially fond of ''Single Handed Sailor'', which has one of Knopfler's finest guitar solos. I also rate ''Where Do You Think You're Going?'' and ''Once Upon A Time In The West'' very highly. The only tracks which I feel are slightly dull are ''News'' and the title track, but I wouldn't call either bad. ''Follow Me Home'' has a somewhat repetitive groove, but in my opinion the lead guitar line and overall atmosphere are sufficient to make up for this.

5) Brothers In Arms - Yes, only fifth on my list. This is by far DS's most commercially successful album, but I certainly don't think it's the best musically - there's not enough guitar for my liking and it feels more pop-orientated than their earlier efforts. One exception to this is the title track, which I consider a classic, and I also enjoy ''The Man's Too Strong'' and ''So Far Away'', even though I find the latter a bit lacking lyrically. I liked ''Walk Of Life'' when I was younger, but nowadays I think it's one of their worst songs - it's too repetitive and sounds quite dated, IMO. I do actually like ''Money For Nothing'', it's got the guitars and I like the MTV-baiting lyrics. In other places, I think this album does get a little dull in places, for example ''Why Worry'' is a nice song but really didn't need to be as long as it was. However, despite my criticisms of some of the music, the quality of the recording itself is great.

I actually purchased Communique first (due to ''Lady Writer''), then bought the debut, Love Over Gold and Making Movies. I haven't actually downloaded the whole of Brothers In Arms yet, but I have heard all of the tracks at some point. If I was to recommend the first DS album to buy, I would suggest getting either the debut or Making Movies.

I've never heard anything from ''On Every Street'' - I think this is partly because I was introduced via the ''Money for Nothing'' compilation, which preceded the 1991 release of the sixth and final DS album, and haven't read anything that has made me feel the need to listen to it myself. However, I am familiar with a few tracks from Mark Knopfler's solo album ''Sailing to Philadelphia'' - I love the title track but my favourite is probably the opener ''What It Is''.

What a brilliantly compiled post, Jonny...a real pleasure to read it, and it's fairly obvious what I think of Knopfler, I can't really make my current sig any bigger!!!

His solo stuff is to my mind even greater than the work he did with Dire Straits, as exceptional as that band was. There's no more versatile musician/song-writer know to me, he will take on everything from gaelic/folk influences to the blues and jazz, hard rock and country and western, he's impossible to pidgeon-hole...and then there's the countless collaborations he's had either as a performer, or on record as musician or producer, with the likes of Dylan, The Chieftains, Clapton, Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Randy Newman etc etc and many others, oh and he also composes brilliant movie soundtracks. There's a thread somewhere on here that I posted in yesterday asking about the best 3 or more back-to-back brilliant albums, which is a tough one, I voted for some Quo albums from the 70's, but I'd also say Knopfler's Golden Heart to Privateering solo albums (7 albums) are as great a quality run as anything else. When I get round to reviving my CRF Blog, if I ever do, I'm going to flag up some great Knofler songs that most people probably won't know.

Dire Straits btw STILL aren't in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, which tells you a lot about the credibility of that fatuous institution, despite the fact they sold 130 million albums....way more records sold and sell out tours than 95% of the other acts in there. Mark is too cool and mature a musician to give a damn, they'll induct them eventually, but it just irks me....in fact this is a man who is so cool that he even has an actual dinosaur named after him. Seriously. The archaeologist who named it was listeing to a Dire Straits albums when he discovered it. If you don't believe me, then check it out the Masiakasaurus knopfleri. ....so Mark maybe the only actual genuine Rock Dinosaur, which is an expression I hear a lot!!

 

[Jonny Come Lately]

Thank you very much - glad you enjoyed reading my post, The Sound, especially coming from such a big Mark Knopfler fan. I agree about his talents as a musician and a songwriter and the exclusion of Dire Straits from the Hall of Fame is in no way a recognition of the band's talent or success.

As an aside to my previous post, I have heard some of the songs (but not all) from the Alchemy live album on youtube - I like what I've heard and my favourites would have to be ''Sultans of Swing'', where I love the epic build up and final solo, and the opener ''Once Upon A Time In The West''. I also rather like the way that DS perform these two older songs in a style matching the Love Over Gold album with the keyboard/synth sections and the greatly extended running time - I think this works especially well for ''Once Upon A Time'', which becomes a wonderfully atmospheric piece.

It's true that the live version of ''Telegraph Road'' can also be found on the Money for Nothing CD (but not the vinyl LP, according to Wikipedia), although it's about a minute shorter with the guitar solo being cut off early. The only song I've heard on Alchemy which I feel is inferior compared to the album version is ''Love Over Gold'' which is quite a bit shorter than the original, although I do like the way ''Romeo And Juliet'' segues into it. I did find a copy of the second disc at a CD stall quite recently, unfortunately I couldn't find the first disc (which has my two favourites on).

Here's a link to the Alchemy version of Once Upon A Time In The West for anyone who wants to hear it:
Dire Straits - Once Upon A Time In The West (Alchemy Live) HQ - YouTube

 

[gguerra]

Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits are one of my favorites as well and have been for a long time.

Here's another collaboration of Mark's, The Notting Hillbillies



@Jonny

Another album which you didn't mention which is also good is Live at the BBC

BTW, My personal favorite is Alchemy now available on Blu Ray (which I own as well)
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Alchemy-Dire-Straits-Live-Blu-ray/10875/

 

[Sweaty]

Great write up on the albums, I think they were an awsome band and have all their albums on CD. Mark is a very accomplished guitar player and a nice chap, I watched a documentary on sky arts some time ago where Mark discussed his 5 fave guitars, it was excellent.

I agree with the comments about Alchemy live as I consider it to be in my top ten live albums and essential listening for any Dire Straits fan, shame that you cannot get the complete concert on DVD to watch.

 

[gguerra]

I agree with the comments about Alchemy live as I consider it to be in my top ten live albums and essential listening for any Dire Straits fan, shame that you cannot get the complete concert on DVD to watch.

Maybe you missed it but at the end of my post I have a link to the review of the Blu Ray concert of Alchemy It is 94 minutes, the DVD is only 60. The CD is 79 minutes for both discs and the double album was 94 minutes. I think the Blu Ray is the most complete thing out as of yet. Who knows how long the actual concert was back in 1983?

 

[TheSound]

One of my favourite tracks by Mark is Marbletown from The Ragpicker's Dream album....just him and his guitar, no frills, sounds like it was recorded in one take in his garage or his bedroom or something, just great unpretentious bluesy music straight from the heart with no gimmicks, you can't ask for more from a musician than to bare himself and his soul like this....

 

[CP/M User]

^^I tend to forget about the Alchemy album myself, I don't think I ever got round to getting a copy.

I remember starting to collect Dire Straits albums around the late 80s and Alchemy was one of those I got on Tape, cause after I got Money For Nothing on Tape, Alchemy seemed to be the next best thing when regard to the number of songs on it. But when I brought the Digitally Remastered CD and played that through my 5 Speaker Hi-Fi, it sounded like the Band were playing in our Lounge Room, my folks even told me to Turn it down and I didn't think the volume was up all that high.

 

[LG]

I remember starting to collect Dire Straits albums around the late 80s and Alchemy was one of those I got on Tape, cause after I got Money For Nothing on Tape, Alchemy seemed to be the next best thing when regard to the number of songs on it. But when I brought the Digitally Remastered CD and played that through my 5 Speaker Hi-Fi, it sounded like the Band were playing in our Lounge Room, my folks even told me to Turn it down and I didn't think the volume was up all that high.

Confirms my suspicions CP/M, you were rebel back in the day.

I used to tell my Mom "If it's too loud...you're too old", but then I would end up turning down the volume just a couple notches.

You lot have piqued my curiosity about Alchemy, I'll have to give it a listen when I have time.

 

[Sweaty]

Maybe you missed it but at the end of my post I have a link to the review of the Blu Ray concert of Alchemy It is 94 minutes, the DVD is only 60. The CD is 79 minutes for both discs and the double album was 94 minutes. I think the Blu Ray is the most complete thing out as of yet. Who knows how long the actual concert was back in 1983?

I did miss that at the end, I read a review somewhere that said the concert on Blu-Ray was not the complete show, I have been looking to pick it up sometime but knowing my luck they will then release a longer or complete concert.