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• Mark Knopfler's Second Act
DIRE STRAITS
(1978)
Key Tracks: "Sultans of Swing," "Six Blade
Knife"
Quick Take: Dire Straits was originally a band, a
four-piece whose singer and lead guitarist, Mark Knopfler, happened
to do the bulk of the writing. Over time, however, the group slowly
became less a unit than Knopfler plus backing players. On one
level, this had a certain Darwinian inevitability to it; being both
a winningly acerbic tunesmith and virtuoso guitarist, it was only
natural that Knopfler would come to the fore. But it's a mistake to
assume that Dire Straits was little more than the Mark Knopfler
show because, as their recordings make plain, this was clearly a
case of the parts exceeding the whole. The quartet's first success
was an insinuating bit of bar-band mythmaking called "Sultans of
Swing." Even though Knopfler's lyrics paint a vivid picture of an
overlooked and underappreciated pub combo, what ultimately reels
the listener in is the laid-back insistence of the band's rhythm
work, a quality abundant throughout Dire Straits, from the
Dylanesque flavor of "Wild West End" to the galloping groove of
"Down to the Waterline."
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COMMUNIQUÉ
(1979)
Key Tracks: "Lady Writer," "Follow Me Home"
Quick Take: Communiqué continues
in the same fashion as Dire Straits for the most part, but
expands the scope of Knopfler's storytelling through the moody,
elegiac "Once Upon a Time in the West." As the rhythmic textures of
this album proove, Dire Straits was nothing if not a groove band.
That's not the same thing as calling it a soul or funk band, of
course; the group's sense of rhythm on "Where Do You Think You're
Going?" has more in common with the swampy, low-key blues of J.J.
Cale and later Eric Clapton.
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MAKING MOVIES
(1980)
Key Tracks: "Romeo and Juliet," "Les Boys"
Quick Take: With the departure of rhythm guitarist
David Knopfler (Mark's brother), the band's size is scaled down,
but the music on the aptly titled Making Movies moves in
the opposite direction, toward sprawling story songs like the
sweet, Springsteenian "Romeo and Juliet," although, as "Skateaway"
indicates, the band's pursuit of musical drama sometimes comes at
the expense of the melody.
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LOVE OVER GOLD
(1982)
Key Tracks: "Telegraph Road," "It Never
Rains"
Quick Take: The band regains its focus for
Love Over Gold, on which the Straits — now a quintet
— easily sustain the mood and melodic structure of the
14-minute megawork "Telegraph Road." Even better, they're able to
augment such epics with material as sharply funny as the wry
character number "Industrial Disease."
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ALCHEMY: DIRE STRAITS LIVE
(1984)
Key Tracks: "Romeo and Juliet," "Tunnel of
Love"
Quick Take: Alchemy, an ambling,
long-winded live album, focuses almost exclusively on the band's
larger works, offering some flashes of instrumental brilliance but
little insight into the material. However, the sprawling story-song
"Romeo and Juliet" is granted even more depth in a live setting
than on Making Movies — it's the one song that
benefits from being stretched out.
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BROTHERS IN ARMS
(1985)
Key Tracks: "Money For Nothing," "Brothers in
Arms"
Quick Take: The focus on epic sprawl on
Alchemy makes the radio-friendly brevity of Brothers
in Arms all the more surprising. It may be easy to find
parallels to the album's biggest hits in the band's early output
— for instance, the way "Walk of Life" seems to cross
"Sultans of Swing" with "Twisting by the Pool," or how "Money for
Nothing" taps the same satiric vein as "Industrial Disease" —
but the reality is that Brothers is the exception to Dire
Straits' sound. But due to the heavy rotation of "Money For
Nothing" (perhaps the group's signature song, co-written by
Knopfler and Sting), it's often recognized as their most popular
album.
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ON EVERY STREET
(1991)
Key Tracks: "Money For Nothing," "Brothers in
Arms"
Quick Take: Knopfler took time off to focus on
soundtrack work, which is why Dire Straits waited so long to
deliver Brothers in Arms' followup, On Every
Street. Although the album has its lighter moments, such as
the dead-Presley "Calling Elvis" or the consumerist sarcasm of
"Heavy Fuel," the bulk of its songs find Dire Straits doing what it
does best, stretching dry, reflective words and tunes over moody,
effortlessly maintained grooves. But that was it; after releasing
another live album, Dire Straits quietly disbanded as Knopfler
pursued the solo career most fans thought he was already
leading.
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THE PRINCESS BRIDE
(1987)
Quick Take: The Princess Bride, assembled
with the help of orchestral arranger Guy Fletcher, offers more
straight-up movie scoring — lots of suspense-building strings
and swashbuckling flourishes, as well as a wonderfully sentimental
vocal by Willy DeVille on "Storybook Love." It's a fun and
satisfying score.
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GOLDEN HEART
(1996)
Key Tracks: "Cannibals," "Don't You Get It"
Quick Take: Golden Heart, released a year
after Knopfler officially disbanded Dire Straits, may open with an
Irish traditional flourish, but plays off many of the same tropes
as the Straits, from the "Money for Nothing"?ish rhythm guitar that
kick-starts "Imelda" to the "Walk of Life"?style shuffle that
drives "Don't You Get It." A pleasant album, but hardly as
appealing as his later work.
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SAILING TO PHILADELPHIA
(2000)
Key Tracks: "Sailing to Philadelphia," "The Last
Laugh"
Quick Take: On Sailing to Philadelphia,
Knopfler combines his cinematic flair with his fondness for folk
music to create a truly memorable set of story-songs. It doesn't
hurt that the album boasts a memorable set of vocal cameos,
including James Taylor (on the title tune), Van Morrison ("The Last
Laugh") and Squeeze's Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook ("Silvertown
Blues").
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THE RAGPICKER'S DREAM
(2002)
Key Tracks: "Sailing to Philadelphia," "The Last
Laugh"
Quick Take: The Ragpicker's Dream is a
pleasant but more conventional entry into Knopfler's oeuvre. By
this time, he had completely jettisoned the groovy riffage of Dire
Straits in favor of a quieter, more mature sound. He pays tribute
to Roger Miller on "Quality Shoe" and employs some lyrical
wackiness on "Coyote" (which is based around "Roadrunner"
cartoons), but the album mostly coasts on Knopfler's considerable
charm and songcraft.
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ALL THE ROADRUNNING (WITH EMMYLOU
HARRIS) (2006)
Key Tracks: "Rollin' On," "The Last Laugh"
Quick Take: All the Roadrunning is an
elegant, sometimes sleepy collection of country-folk duets pairing
Dire Straits' former frontman with one of Nashville's elder
stateswomen. Knopfler sings in a shopworn tenor and works up
graceful harmonies with Harris, whose crystalline voice is put to
better use here than on her arty recent records. The pair mostly
keep the tempos slow and the arrangements light on these portraits
of heartbreak and small-town life, and a handful of songs —
including the reggae-tinged "Rollin' On" — meander by
unremarkably. But ballads like the title track and the
Springsteen-esque "Beyond My Wildest Dreams" are world-wise and
gently gorgeous.
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KILL TO GET CRIMSON
(2007)
Key Tracks: "Let It All Go," "The Scaffolder's
Wife"
Quick Take: Kill to Get Crimson features
some of Knopfler's best character studies: the failed actor in "The
Fizzy and the Still," the aging painter in "Let It All Go" whose
passion for color gives the album its title. A recovering guitar
god, Knopfler plays superbly — check out his haunting solo on
"The Scaffolder's Wife" — but always with instinctive
restraint. He's an ensemble player, nestling in among the likes of
accordionist Ian Lowthian and fiddler John McCusker to summon sonic
images that subtly reinforce the moods of his songs.
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SHANGRI-LA
(2004)
Key Tracks: "Song for Sonny Liston," "Everybody
Pays"
Quick Take: Recorded in the famed Malibu studio of
the same name that was once home to Bob Dylan and the Band,
Shangri-La mixes sunniness and darkness in artful ways.
Knopfler has crafted a short-story collection of tales about crime
("Postcards From Paraguay") and punishment ("Everybody Pays"),
American icons ("Song for Sonny Liston" and "Back to Tupelo," a
non-salute to Col. Tom Parker) and even franchise capitalism
("Boom, Like That" — the tastiest tune ever inspired by late
McDonald's chief Ray Kroc). Though it's less self-consciously epic
than a Dire Straits masterpiece such as Making Movies,
Shangri-La shows that Knopfler still knows how to
super-size his ambitions.
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MISSING...PRESUMED HAVING A GOOD
TIME (1990) (WITH THE NOTTING HILBILLIES)
Key Tracks: "Bewildered," "Run Me Down"
Quick Take: In the long wait before the final Dire
Straits album and in between soundtrack work, Knopfler got together
with Brendan Croker, Guy Fletcher and Steve Phillips to form the
Notting Hillbillies. This album, their only release, is a breezy
collection of blues tunes with hints of country and bluegrass
thrown in for good measure. In the context of his solo work,
Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time isn't all that
shocking, but at the time it was viewed as a fairly wild departure
from Dire Straits. The ballad "Bewildered" is the clear
standout.