FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms
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THIS week for Vinyl Corner…
I want to shine a light on an album that is about to turn thirty-five. If you can get Brothers in Arms on vinyl then do so, as it is an incredible record and one that some people might not be aware of. Released on 13th May, 1985, Brothers in Arms followed 1982’s Love Over Gold. The fifth album from the band, it charted at number-one in several countries; it spent fourteen consecutive weeks at the top of the U.K. charts, and it was the first album to be certified ten-times platinum in the U.K. It has sold more than thirty-million copies worldwide so, for that reason, Brothers in Arms warrants a lot of love. Brothers in Arms was also one of the first albums to be recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine. The reason behind this was because Dire Straits’ lead, Mark Knopfler, was seeking a better sound and was always searching how to make a recording better. Alongside co-produced Neil Dorfsman, Knopfler and the band produced an epic record. Recorded at AIR Studios, Montserrat, the line-up included Knopfler (guitar), John Illsley (bass), Alan Clark (piano and Hammond B-3 organ) and Guy Fletcher; Terry Williams was the band's then-permanent drummer. I cannot recall when I first heard the album, but I must have heard singles from the album played on MTV. Money for Nothing (featuring Sting) was a big part of my early childhood, and I also remember seeing the video for Walk of Life play.
The energy and power of these songs resonated in me and, whilst there was some mixed reaction to Brothers in Arms upon its release, one cannot deny the fact that it is a classic and an album with more than a few brilliant tunes. So Far Away, Your Latest Trick and Brothers in Arms are incredible tracks; I do not think there is a filler track on the album. I know some have sort of turned their noses up at the sound of the album and the fact it can lumber into cheese territory; how the album is quite long and so forth. I think a lot in the British press was less kind towards Brothers in Arms than others, as they reacted to Knopfler’s attempts to Americanise the music and criticised his lyrical style too. The American press themselves were more kind, and although many noted a lack of consistency through Brothers in Arms, they praised the guitar riffs and grandeur of the music. Some tracks on Brothers in Arms sound dated now, but I think the album as a whole stands up and deserves respect. The BBC reviewed the album a few years back and had this to say:
“29 Million copies sold. Third best-selling album of all time in the UK. First album to succeed in the CD market, Grammy winning, earner of enough Platinum to build a house: Brothers In Arms is a phenomenon on every level. Its production raised the bar for all music to come, its songs and videos became household items. It also almost destroyed the band.
By 1984, incessant touring and recording schedules hadn’t dimmed Mark Knopfler’s enthusiasm for perfection. Having taken over the production duties on previous album Love Over Gold, he now went even further towards a kind of pop-oriented Americana. Brothers…has a fine array of chart moments, including, of course, the Sting-assisted video hit “Money for Nothing”, the moody “So far Away” and faux bop “Walk Of Life”. But it gets them out of the way in the manner of mere aperitifs and then massages you with a suite of Knopfler’s very fine brand of JJ Cale-lite. Along with gruff nods to Dylan and James Burton. Like contemporaries U2 they had the golden touch that made their gold instantly more American and mythical than most acts from the States.
They toured this album for two years. After that amount of time surely any band would falter. They certainly had a very long hiatus. This album was bigger than them. On that final night of the tour in they must have never wanted to hear a note of this album again. Twenty years on, it’s still echoing around the world. As inescapable as ever”.
I do wonder whether there will be any anniversary edition or any news that comes out to mark Brothers in Arms’ thirty-fifth birthday, as it is an important album that has affected a lot of people. I love nearly all the tracks on the album, and it is great to listen to them in lockdown; I am picking up stuff that I did not notice years ago. As of July 2016, Brothers in Arms was the eighth-best-selling album of all time in the U.K. That is not bad going at all!
When they reviewed the album, AllMusic were full of praise:
“Brothers in Arms brought the atmospheric, jazz-rock inclinations of Love Over Gold into a pop setting, resulting in a surprise international best-seller. Of course, the success of Brothers in Arms was helped considerably by the clever computer-animated video for "Money for Nothing," a sardonic attack on MTV. But what kept the record selling was Mark Knopfler's increased sense of pop songcraft -- "Money for Nothing" had an indelible guitar riff, "Walk of Life" is a catchy up-tempo boogie variation on "Sultans of Swing," and the melodies of the bluesy "So Far Away" and the down-tempo, Everly Brothers-style "Why Worry" were wistful and lovely. Dire Straits had never been so concise or pop-oriented, and it wore well on them. Though they couldn't maintain that consistency through the rest of the album -- only the jazzy "Your Latest Trick" and the flinty "Ride Across the River" make an impact -- Brothers in Arms remains one of their most focused and accomplished albums, and in its succinct pop sense, it's distinctive within their catalog. [In 2005 Mercury released a 20th anniversary limited edition version of Brothers in Arms in the Hybrid/SACD format.]”
Five years ago, to mark thirty years of Brothers in Arms, Ultimate Classic Rock looked at the album’s birthday and how the digital route helped it get to the top of the charts:
“But before it topped charts, sold millions and won Grammys, Brothers in Arms had a fairly humble birth. After working the songs out with the band in rehearsal, Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler took the group and co-producer Neil Dorfsman out to AIR Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat — a setting that proved idyllic in some ways and frustrating in others.
"It was pretty torturous," Dorfsman told Sound on Sound. "It was a good-sounding studio, but the main room itself was nothing to write home about. ... Still, we crowded everybody in there, recording with at least three or four guys on every tune, while I built little rooms out of gobos and baffles and blankets."
What saved the tracks — and helped make Brothers in Arms a benchmark recording for the early years of the nascent digital era — was the studio's Neve console, which combined with the overall Montserrat vibe to produce a purity of sound as well as intent. "It was a great place to hang out and it was very relaxed, so you could focus on what you were doing," explained Dorfsman. "And the board was so good that anything you put through it just sounded great."
Also aiding Brothers in Arms' steady ascent to No. 1 on the charts was Knopfler and Dorfsman's decision to record using a digital deck. Although the album wasn't completely digital, it came close enough to be marketed as one of the few titles whose sonics took advantage of the new CD format's capability for cleaner sound, and the sales bore that out: Brothers became the first record to move a million compact discs, and the first whose CD sales outmatched its LP's. For a variety of reasons, it was the right album at the right time — not that Knopfler ever professed to understand the huge surge in popularity that followed.
"It was a sheer fluke," Knopfler said years later. "If it hadn't been that album, it would have been something else. It was just an accident of timing. It got connected -- 'Brothers in Arms' was the first CD single, or so I'm told, and I suppose it was one of the first CD albums. ... Plus, we had a couple of hits in America -- 'Money for Nothing' and 'Walk of Life' -- so it got connected with the American success, but people will always want to make something like that into something else completely".
The success Dire Straits achieved after 1985 meant that Mark Knopfler could not be anonymous or go unnoticed. It did take the band to new heights, and Knopfler considered retiring the Dire Straits now following Brothers in Arms’ dominance. I am not sure how he feels about the album now, but I think it is a wonderful record indeed. With some epic production, incredible tracks and so many memorable moments, Brothers in Arms is, indeed, an album that everyone…
NEEDS in their lives.