Dire Straits—with their distinctive brand of mellow, flowing, blues-based rock—offered listeners one of the best alternatives to the leading punk and post-punk scene of late-‘70s and early-‘80s England. Fronted by vocalist and lead guitarist Mark Knopfler, they played a rootsy, classic rock style when it was decidedly un-hip to do so (in the UK, at least).
Playlist 1
The first playlist features Dire Straits at their minimal best, on their excellent self-titled debut and the not-too-shabby follow-up, Communiqué.
(Communiqué mined the same vein as the debut, but with less impressive results. The debut, even when it seemed mellow, had an edge to it—just listen to how fiercely Knopfler picks that guitar and how stealthily funky the groove is in the otherwise easygoing “In the Gallery.” But the edge is mostly smoothed out on Communiqué. As a result, the album veers a little too close to adult-contemporary territory for me at times.)
Playlist 2
After their initial two albums, Dire Straits’ ambitions grew to a epic, lyrical peak through the career highlight Making Movies and into the solid Love Over Gold (a touch underrepresented here, perhaps), in which Knopfler aims for—and almost achieves—a Springsteen-like, working-class pathos. Then came their massive commercial breakthrough, Brothers in Arms, which built upon up all they’d done before in a set of tidy, crafted, radio-friendly pop-rock songs.
(For my tastes, Brothers suffers somewhat from mid-‘80s overproduction—what would “So Far Away” have sounded like if it were done more in the style of their debut? A tendency toward sentimentality that had always plagued the band in their most tender moments didn’t help, either.)
Cover Art:
- Dire Straits (front cover and inner sleeve): Source, Discogs.com
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