(Regrettably, the 1983 EP Extendedance Play, with its giddy new-wave single “Twisting by the Pool,” isn’t here, nor 1984 live 2xLP Alchemy.) But that modesty helps draw connections between records, tracing the band’s growth while underscoring its constant attention to detail. Containing nothing but straight reissues of the six studio albums the group released during its lifetime, the set contains nary a frill. But beneath the digital gleam, Dire Straits’ debt to roots rock was evident, particularly in Knopfler’s mellow growl and clean, deft guitar solos.Ī tension between polish and grit was evident from the start, as the 2020 box set The Studio Albums 1978-1991 illustrates. Its novel production-a DDD affair, in the parlance of the times, meaning it was recorded, mixed, and mastered digitally-appealed to audiophiles, and its reputation for sumptuous sound helped make it the first million-selling compact disc. The video’s success could be called a fluke, but the album appealed to legions of sophisticates who couldn’t be bothered with MTV. The network placed the computer-animated video for “Money for Nothing” into heavy rotation, sending the album into the upper reaches of the charts, a place it would call home for the better part of a year. In doing so, the group acted as the bridge between the ’70s AOR and ’80s MTV, shepherding a transition from faceless arena rockers to flashy video stars.īrothers in Arms benefited greatly from MTV. Musicians came and went with regularity during the group’s heyday, the cast changing as Knopfler and Ilsley refined their silvery, slithery hybrid of British progressive rock and American country-a curious, improbable fusion that Dire Straits made seem logical, perhaps even inevitable.
Yet singer and guitarist Mark Knopfler’s fame quickly eclipsed the rest of the band, including bassist John Illsley, the only member who stood alongside him in every one of the group’s incarnations. Their 1985 LP Brothers in Arms was a blockbuster on par with Thriller, Born in the USA, and Purple Rain for nearly a decade, it held the title as the best-selling British album ever, before being dethroned by Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. Take Dire Straits, who were by any measure one of the biggest rock bands of the 1980s. Stats don’t lie, but the tales they tell can be misleading.
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