Track Listing
1. Down To The Waterline
2. Water Of Love
3. Setting Me Up
4. Six Blade Knife
5. Southbound Again
6. Sultans Of Swing
7. In The Gallery
8. Wild West End
9. Lions
Review
This is the most uncool of uncool bands, and I know it is wrong to like Dire Straits... but I do. But I have an excuse at least, I grew up with them, particularly Brothers In Arms which will be here eventually. My first live concert was Dire Straits at the age of 12 or something. And they remind me of a pretty happy childhood.
That said there are plenty of wrong things with it, it is rock for young conservative yuppies. It is one of the gutsier albums of the late 70's for all the wrong reasons, it is gutsy because the whole scene was leaning towards edgy and political stuff and here cove this bunch of guys making of the least confrontational albums ever. But hey Knopfler is still an amazing guitarist and he makes some pretty catchy songs.
So it is brainless, but it is coming from the same place as The Stranglers for example, the whole pub-rock scene in the UK. Just that they were probably at very distinct pubs. But still, today you go to the south of Spain or the Algarve in Portugal and if you are in a pub with a live band, chances are Sultans Of Swing will come on at some point to satisfy the British punters who were young professionals in the 80's. And hey it is a great track... but just soooo square.
Track Highlights
1. Sultans Of Swing
2. Down To The Waterline
3. Water Of Love
4. Six Blade Knife
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
he album was noted for the single "Sultans of Swing", which at first broke a US Top Five early 1979 (being a hit full five months after the album was released there) and then raised up at #8 in the British charts. It was remastered and released with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the U.S. and on September 19, 2000 in the United States. The cover image is taken from a painting by Chuck Loyola.
Sultan Of Swing:
3 comments:
The eighties are just around the corner. But hey, it's (going to be) hip to be square.
Every now and again I put on Love Over Gold and turn down the lights. Dire Straits seemed so sophisticated and grown up back then.
About this time it seemed like every radio station was playing endless disco, and anything was better than that!
Speaking of disco... where is disco on this list? Did I miss it somewhere? Is it totally unrepresented? Now I'm going to have to search the list again.
Actually the next post will be disco. Chic... there's two Chich albums and one Sister Sledge and I think that's it... all coming soon.
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