Dire Straits: "Brothers in Arms"

25 September 1985

"Ten out of ten for any Dire Straits record."

— Susan Tully

"Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits,
It's not our music, it's out of date."
— The Reynolds Girls, "I'd Rather Jack"

I first saw a CD player in my aunt and uncle's basement at some point in 1987. I knew nothing of formats at the time (still don't really) but I wasn't terribly impressed. Records were nice and big and were cool to look at and carry around with you. Cassettes were convenient and gave everyone the chance to make mixes and pretend to be their very own DJ. Eight track tapes may have been lousy but at least they looked a bit like Atari game cartridges. Like vinyl, reel-to-reel at least had bulk going for them, as well as perhaps the feeling that consumers were really investing in something (either that or the delusion that they were doing so). But CD's weren't nice to stare at, seemed very breakable for something supposedly indestructible and I for one couldn't look past the fact that you couldn't even flip them over to listen to the other side — and they were bloody expensive.

The Brothers in Arms album was one of those pop-rock mega-successes of the eighties and a unique one at that. It was the first big hit on the new format of compact disc and, perhaps as a result, got snapped up by everyone's parents. And why not? They certainly looked the part. They were either balding or wore yuppie perms and dressed in sharp, white suits. Kids didn't want to emulate them, didn't put posters up of them, didn't fancy any of them (though, to be fair, I highly doubt any mothers did either: Mark Knophler wasn't exactly Richard Dean Anderson, was he?) and didn't buy their bloody boring records — they were meant for yuppies throwing fondue parties and middle-class dads who reckoned Chris de Burgh was too soft. That lot.

Or that's what you'd be forgiven for thinking (except for the part about anyone fancying them). While Dire Straits were favourites of listeners in their thirties, it wasn't their exclusive audience, especially in 1985. The eighteen-year-old Susan Tully, star of English soap phenomenon Eastenders, didn't opt for the cool choice (The Jesus & Mary Chain), nor the supposed role-model for girls (Madonna) and not even the sort of vanilla, inoffensive cheery pop that you might think would appeal to young women with her choice of haircut and vaguely beatific smile (Bucks Fizz, maybe even Shaky). No, she digs ver Straits — and, indeed, so did many young people at the time. Their videos were neat (well, a couple of them at any rate), Knophler's guitar playing was brilliant — catchy and distinctive though played with a degree of modesty — and their songs seemed funny. Who else would sing about hauling appliances and colour TVs? They seemed to catch lightning in a bottle for at least that one year as they effectively tapped into the MTV market while proving their rockist bonefides at Live Aid, which then caused a shift away from Duran Duran and Wham! to the likes of Sting, Phil Collins and Dire Straits as British rock royalty. Play The Reynolds Girls' annoying 1989 hit "I'd Rather Jack" for audiences four years earlier and no one would have the foggiest what they're on about (though, I wasn't all that sure myself and I liked that abominable record).

But what did ver kids make of "Brothers in Arms", probably the least remembered of their run of hits? Well, Tully's fine with it but she also makes it clear that Knophler and co could've recorded the sound of them pissing into Dixie cups and she still would have made it SOTF (well, she doesn't say so but you know...). Youngsters likely weren't buying it on CD so they had the traditional LP and cassette formats that they either bought or — in the case of this writer — borrowed from their parents and it was an album we weren't flipping over. All the hits happened to be on the first side so what did we need with all that filler on the other side? (Yes, I'm aware that this flies in the face of what I said above about resenting CDs because they didn't have a side two but I've always been resistant to change and, anyway, I would have at least appreciated having the option of having a flip side to ignore) The single did all right spending a fortnight in the Top Twenty but it was sandwiched in between a pair of much bigger hits so it likely threw off their momentum a bit. The novelty of a CD single release (said to be the first of its kind) probably aided it a bit but this formatting quirk indicates that this was one mainly being snapped up the loyalists — curious kids with a couple bob to spare were probably looking elsewhere, even if there wasn't much out there for them.

Despite its lack of immediacy, "Brothers in Arms" is a high point of the album and one of Knophler's greatest compositions. Avoiding the mildly amusing character songs that made him wealthy ("Sultans of Swing", "Walk of Life", "Money for Nothing") as well as the overtly Dylanesque trickery of "Romeo and Juliet" (still a great song), Knophler attempts to engage in some human understanding. Every British songwriter of the time tried knocking out a tune following the Falklands War and he was no exception. There's nothing here that Siegfried Sassoon didn't put far more elegantly seventy years earlier but it is nonetheless an affecting tribute to young men caught up in a futile conflict. Americans had been dishing out Vietnam War numbers about veterans returning from Southeast Asia only to find themselves spurned by everyone but the troubles in the South Atlantic seemed to inspire Knophler to examine the nobility of British (and, by extension, Argentine) soldiers giving their lives for something trivial. There's nothing dazzling about his guitar playing but his sparse ax solos provide a pained resonance. It probably doesn't matter had it been a single or not (even though I applaud them for having done so given that they had more obvious candidates) as it seems more appropriate as one of those deep cuts that fans come to adore over time. I don't know why we never bothered flipping the album over since there was gold on that second side.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Matt Bianco: "Yeh Yeh"

In addition to Dire Straits, Tully also recommends new records from Hipsway, Tears for Fears and Matt Bianco. What do all these groups have in common? I think it's precision. Attention to detail. Bands influenced by blues, funk and soul with musicians who had honed their craft over years of practice and hopeless gigs. Of course it's impossible to picture the members of the louche Matt Bianco playing working man's clubs in tough industrial towns like Dire Straits but there's a no less dedicated graft. "Yeh Yeh" is an engaging sophisti-pop dance piece that nevertheless feels very thin next to the bleak and stately beauty of the SOTF. If this is the best that mainstream pop had to offer then it's no wonder the kids all began embracing Dire Straits.