The first album was a very good record, and Alchemy still gets plays on the walk to work. Even Brothers in Arms, the song rather than the album, was put to very effective use in the West Wing.

I drank a bottle of Thatchers cider (well it was the eighties) and me and friend sat on the stairs and watched the older kids (a whole 2 years some of them) do their stuff.
About 3/4 of the way down the bottle "Money for Nothing" came on really loud, with the drums and the bit when the guitar kicks in and I thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard.
I think they are done down by the ubiquity and also by association with the whole cd yuppie thing.

(Walk of Life and the odd other tune notwithstanding). The reasons I haven't listened to them for 20 years are no fault of theirs really:

* Their ever-presence on MTV and Radio 1 in the mid 1980s meant I got bored sick of them.

* The fact that Brothers in Arms came to represent a kind of 'yuppie rock' that was a fixture in restaurants and cafes and at dinner parties.

* The endless guff you used to hear about how wonderful CDs are usually accompanied by someone mentioning that album.

* The fact that their CDs would always be on top of the pile in Hi-Fi shop demonstration rooms.

One reason is down to Knopfler alone:

* That stupid bloody headband. For God's sake man, you were balding... couldn't you have lived with it? It couldn't have looked any worse than going onstage looking like John McEnroe.

have a soft spot for Love Over Gold as it reminds me of my first monumental crush - for whom I made a compilation tape with said track on it.

That party when she walked in? I felt my heart physically stop.

Needless to say I made a complete and utter Horlicks of trying to talk to her

http://open.spotify.com/track/0dp7LDhWU1BWfwIyl8Unir

Your Latest Trick

Yes the headband was silly but the music wasn't so bad

Dire Straits a couple of years ago. Found that the first 4 albums were actually pretty good. The first is probably the best, but the second and third have some good stuff on as well.
"Money for Nothing" killed them for me at the time.

was the first CD I bought, even before I had something to play it on (don't ask). Lent it to a friend, who returned it after a couple of years and how I wish he hadn't. Awful, awful, awful!

I am still rather partial to Alchemy though.

Love over gold got it's title from some graphito opposite Mark Knopfler's flat in Deptford here's the mural that Mark paid for when some numpty at the council washed off the original.
http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/ArtsService/PublicArt/Deptf...

Up to the godawful "walk of life" and horrendous "money for nothing" they did some fine tunes. Became a horrible pop band thereafter. Wonder what the other guys are doing,bet they'd kill for a re-union tour.

John Isley is a painter now and does the odd gig or too.Guy Fletcher does lots of writing for films and TV I think.
I think a re-union has been discussed, might happen one day, but what line up wwould you choose. Knophler, Isley and Guy Fletcher are only the real henchmen. I for one,hope they don't.

it was the headband, of course, and the satin tour jackets, but if you really want to spot the moment it all goes wrong I suggest one word: saxophone.

were really good but never quite delivered a stone, cold classic album. Most of them had some excellent songs plus a few ho-hum ones as well. The first album in particular has some lovely songs on it and my favourite is "Wild West End."

Obviously the headband now goes down as a style faux pas but it's a boring man whose never looked at an old photo and thought, "What did I look like?"

Mark Knopfler's recent solo records are pretty excellent. I think he's a bit of hidden (guilty?) secret but I still follow his work keanly.

Second album not so (just a retread of album number one, with more expensive production), then they descended into radio/MTV friendly soft rock which was pretty poor (and became associated with the worst excesses of the 80s).

"Former Yorkshire Evening Post journalist" Mark Knopfler (as he was always described by our local rag throughout my teens) is a pretty good guitarist though.

In their favour, the first album got me into Ry Cooder (courtesy of an NME review of "Bop Till You Drop") so they're not all bad

To the point of having a Love Over Gold T-shirt which I can remember wearing for games at school aged about 14 or 15. That's how cool I was...

The first album is a classic with great songs like Down To The Waterline, Wild West End and, of course, Sultans of Swing.

Later stuff got a bit overblown but I still like it: Telegraph Road, Private Investigations, Tunnel of Love especially. I remember ITV used part of Telegraph Road for their boxing coverage in the 80s so it always reminds me of Barry McGuigan, Lloyd Honeyghan and co.

Liked Brothers in Arms at the time but less so now. The Money for Nothing intro which builds into a crescendo with those crashing drums before the guitars come in still sounds good, though. Lost interest in them after this, mind.

I think the problem with Dire Straits is not so much the music but what they came to represent. Patrick further up this thread hits the nail squarely on the head here.

Anyway, happy birthday Mark Knopfler, in the very unlikely event you're reading this.

I don't know whether he still lives in this country, but even though he's 60 I can't imagine he'll be needing to claim his winter fuel allowance.

Is that the Gold Standard example of a crap second album?

However, whilst I remember at the time of release Communique was universally derided by the critics, I think that is as much a reflection of unfairly high expectations.
Having listened to Communique in its entirety a couple of years ago for the first time in 2 decades I would argue its a pretty good effort. Sure its a wee bit "more of the same" but seeing as the first album was excellent, what's so bad about that?

David Knopfler looks as keen as a puppy to be in big brother Mark's band

It's Knopfler, not Knophler, get it Wright, right!

A very fine band actually. Liked their bar room guitar swing stuff. The first album and Love Over Gold are probably my favourites. Brothers in Arms was too polished and perfect with all the spontaneity of their music sucked out by the production.

Mark Knopfler brought something unique to the instrument. Clapton rates him highly; he said he used to watch Knopfler on stage and wondered how he got that sound.

Dire Straits carved a niche for themselves and left behind a body of work that reflected the spirit of the times in which it was produced and played. Which is more than can be said for a lot of their contemporaries.

that the first 4 albums were ppretty good, but knopfler called a halt to the band at just the right time. would that a few others had followed his example and known when to stop - any suggestions - how about the who for starters!

And didn't he play the solo on 'Hey Nineteen'? Or am I making that up?

on dylan's classic 'blind wille mctell' asks bargepole - surely the finest dylan tune of the last 25 years.

There's a significant place for them in my heart. The first band I saw live, in 1980. When they were briefly cool during the Making Movies era.

Saw them at Newcastle City Hall which at the time I thought was huge but is really a smallish concert hall. The noise, to me, was immense and the lights were astonishing. Knopflers guitar playing on top of the vast drum sound was breath-taking.

Followed him since. Pleased Straits stopped. You could feel the production values taking over the songs - songs that had to have a big sound to fill the stadiums they were playing. More than anything he's an introspective lyricist and his voice and style is not suited to the bombast that Straits produced in their latter glossy years. The early simpler arrangments on the first albums haven't been bettered.

Check out his solo stuff since '96. There are some beautiful songs tucked away on each.

the number of positive responses shows they didn't "suck"! Nice one for posting Eastbound Train - possibly my favourite - and I have to agree with the "first few albums" good theory, but then I reckon thats true of a lot of bands. The headband years were regrettable and the move to stadium rock always seemed to piss Knopfler off - if you listen to a lot of his inter-song retorts he just grunts loudly at the crowd at the end of some over long blustering song climax. I bet they were a great, tight little band best suited to small venues, something he chose to go back to with the Hillbillies.
Got me into JJ Cale too, ta very much!

...largely down to the fact that it was the about the only CD you could buy, should you have been an "early adopter" of said digital technology.