Album Club: 13.09.2011: Dire Straits - Dire Straits (1978)

[griffo104]

As for the clash...IMHO The Clash didn't hit their straps until 'London Calling', not a punk album at all, prior to that I found their work patchy, some interesting stuff mixed in with simplistic Ramone style copies.

I would agree with that but would argue it is a punk album. It was the album they wanted to make and screw what anyone else thought about it. In that case it sums up the punk ethos even if it took the music past the 3 chords.

But this isn't a Clash thread so I apologise to the OP, and I'll shut up now

[MartinT]

Or shall I just select London Calling next time it my turn and let you get your own back

I promise to listen and review it without preconceptions. If you do the same and give the DS a single star then that's fair enough.

[griffo104]

I promise to listen and review it without preconceptions. If you do the same and give the DS a single star then that's fair enough.

Just chatting to mate who owns the album, he's bringing it round tomorrow night for me - just make sure the cd player allows it

[Tim]

Well I like this album, loved it when I bought it on release and still do, so could have voted without listening. But I haven't done that for any of the albums so far, as what's the point in joining in if you don't play before commenting? And some of the comments have been (IMO) a little intolerant and disappointing.

Anyway, I'm not going to go there - I gave it 2 listens and I still like it .... 5

[The Grand Wazoo]

An interesting and obviously divisive choice, this one!

I think some of the nay sayers are maybe letting their judgement be clouded by memories of not being able to go anywhere or do anything between 1982 & about mid-'86 without hearing the singles from 'Love Over Gold' and 'Brothers In Arms'.

As I've done with all of the Club albums so far, for my own interest, I've taken a quick look at it in the context of the time in which it was released and the year of 1978 was, overall, a pretty dreadful year for music, as far as I'm concerned!
The five biggest singles were offerings from The Bee Gees (x2), John Travolta & Olivia Newton John (from whom there were several other huge selling singles), Boney M & Village People. The album releases were generally pretty ropey too, with very little that most people would now consider to be landmark albums - maybe at a stretch, you could list the first Van Halen album, 'The Kick Inside', 'Darkness on the Edge of Town', 'Live and Dangerous', 'The War of the Worlds', 'Don't Look Back' and 'Parallel Lines'.
So, in amongst most of the other stuff released that year, this was a bit of a gem really, I'd suggest! It was also pretty much different from anything else on offer that year

It was one of the few (then current) albums that I knew well in that year & after about 12 years, my copy & I somehow became separated (don't quite know how). I've apparently never been suitably motivated to replace my lost copy, but there have been times that I've felt like playing it, so it's been good to hear it again. I've also been reminded that it's the only Dire Straits album that I really like enough to want to own.

I've now played it 3 times and the one over-riding impression I've been struck with is how much the whole thing sounds like J.J. Cale - not just the guitar playing, because the rhythm section of almost any of the tracks could have been lifted straight out of 'Troubadour'. Overall, this is a pretty good thing, because I think JJ's a bit of a star really. The subtlety of the slide guitar playing in 'Water of Love' is one of the outstanding points of the album for me, but I like the way that the whole album is slightly understated, which is maybe something that Dire Straits lost in later albums.

I don't think this album has really dated at all, unlike some of it's competition of the time. I've enjoyed listening to it again, even though it's impossible to really listen to Sultans of Swing with truly 'fresh ears'!

[Thing Fish]

Although the album fairs well I have only walked out of one concert before the end and it was Dire straits brothers in arms. I got free tickets 2 rows from the front but alas it was not enough to keep me awake during a 30 minute version of Private investigations.

I have to add that I once won a ticket to see Marillion in London and burned the thing (really!!) rather than listen to the total and utter pap that that band of twats produced.

[Rare Bird]

the year of 1978 was, overall, a pretty dreadful year for music, as far as I'm concerned!

More like the last 38 years

[Marco]

Lol!

As I've done with all of the Club albums so far, for my own interest, I've taken a quick look at it in the context of the time in which it was released and the year of 1978 was, overall, a pretty dreadful year for music, as far as I'm concerned!

Obviously you're not a fan of punk then, Chris?

Devo's 'Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!', was a bit of classic.

Or what about Elvis Costello's 'This Year's Model', which was released in 1978? An excellent album, in many people's opinion.... Or there was The Who's 'Who Are you?', which I don't think was too shabby, neither which was Kraftwerk's 'Man Machine', or The Rolling Stones' 'Some Girls' - all released in '78, dude

A stand-out album, for me, released in 1978, was 'I'm Ready' by Muddy Waters, featuring the amazing track 'I'm your Hoochie Coochie Man':



And with you being a Zappa fan, what about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappa_in_New_York or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Tan

Marco.

[MartinT]

LOL, but what about the Dire Straits, Marco?

[John]

A while back I was at Vic and he played me a Dire Straits track the production was awesome you know the band in the room, I remember saying or my god perhaps I have to buy a Dire Straits album and I guess that one of the issues for the band they have a style of aor/country that I generally avoid but really care about good production
I am not anti Dire Straits but reconise they have a certain not cool factor to them, perhaps because they have been over played or perhaps when I was getting into music in the late 70s my taste was very much metal Van Halen Ted Nugent BOC and this just was far to commercial