TAPE Me Back To The Future — MADE For Tape # 6: Dire Straits, “Brothers in Arms” (1985)
An occasional series here that celebrates the cassette-tape format in all its glory. Wobbles
Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms (1985)
Better address the elephant right at the top.
About a decade ago, I wrote this ( intended to be humourous, but mostly true) essay about how I considered Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits to be one of the “classic albums” I could never listen to again. It was in protest of the fact that this is the album that gets the band all the attention (and derision) and hangs like a neon thundercloud over Mark Knopfler. Well, he’s done his best to move right to the side of it and carry an umbrella always, just in case.
Anyway, I’m a huge fan of the first three Dire Straits albums, first four in a pinch. But album number five — this one — is where they went widescreen without adjusting the ratio. They just added neon-pink synth hues to their brand of rockabilly. And became megastars. And though, as a 9 year old, I thought this was the greatest. (Also mostly my introduction to the band, worked back from there). I also grew — quickly to resent it. Shortly after seeing the last version of the group live on their farewell victory lap extended world tour, I was over this album completely.
But then, tape nostalgia kicked in. And I decided I didn’t need the album on CD or vinyl — but hearing it on cassette tape was different.
And it is. I’m right. The perfect album intro, So Far Away, and then the big extended version of Money for Nothing, which was so mind blowing for a time. And the smooth-jazz sax of Your Latest Trick, and you have to really go all in, it’s not easy to skip Walk of Life, which is so utterly skippable despite (and because of the fact) it was such a huge (annoying) hit. I want to hear the rough demo where it’s just a chooglin’ Springsteen rockabilly boogie. Strip those nasty keys away son! But, you know what, on TAPE, I am forced to encounter it as if in the complete spirit of the times.
It’s funny that this is the album most associate with the worldwide dominance of the Compact Disc. A stereo tester in the hi-fi shops. Because, it has to be the best example of bookending both sides of a tape (or vinyl). Side one finishing with Why Worry, which is a song-fragment at best, but it is gorgeously teased out across 8 minutes with a refrain that is reminiscent of the Love Over Gold era. The arrangement carries the song in its cushion.
Side two kicks off with Ride Across The River, the one time on this album the keys and guitars really — properly — talked to one another. That synth intro delaying the stinging Strat-attack and that liquid-tone so perfectly. And of course the title track to close is perfect. Epic. Majestic. Somehow both towering and subtle all at once. Blueprint for when Knopfler-isms are at their absolute finest, both the warble and the solo…
Sandwiched between the two epics of side two are the albums most forgettable songs for many — One World and The Man’s Too Strong. I happen to think they’re some of the best work on this album, particularly now. Hot take maybe, and deflated instantly by waiting 29 years to deliver it, but Side Two is better than Side One.
You can have those sorts of conversations with cassette culture. Nerdy-as, but not hurting anyone.
I was a huge Dire Straits fan — and yes, of course I still am. But owning this “classic album” and forcing myself to listen to it again, on this format, because of this format, has allowed me to reconcile how I truly feel about Brothers in Arms. It’s not the best Dire Straits album. It’s some giant albatross around the neck of Mark Knopfler. Though it has paid handsomely for his life and given him options galore. And it’s not as terrible as many (including myself) have said.
It still elates many fans too. And I’m no longer going to be the one that rains on that type of parade.
As I said in the most nerdiest of forums going, there’s something you can’t explain sometimes with both music and its delivery, and the nostalgia that forms as a result and I’m right at the point in time/the age of just so thoroughly embracing that:
