Have you ever found yourself listening to an album that you first bought years ago, and haven't listened to in a while? Did the memories of why you love the band, and the album just come rushing back? This happens to me every once in a while. Take Kiss' Creatures Of The Night or AC/DC's Back In Black.
This time around it was Dire Strait's Brothers In Arms. I have had this album since I was eight years old in some form or another. Listening to this CD tonight, the memories just came flooding back. Not just the memories of "Money For Nothing" - the very bad video-clip that was very good at the time, but the memory of how much I love this album. I remember when I first bought it on cassette, I played it over and over and over again until my dad threatened to throw the cassette in the bin if I continued to do so.
So what's so special about this album? Is it Mark Knopfler's gruff vocals or brilliant guitar playing? (Not in the same brilliance that I would class Hendrix, Frehley, Vai, or Satriani but definitely right up there.)
Maybe it's the memories of how "Money For Nothing" was the 'it' video-clip at the time, despite the fact it was taking a major swipe at MTV, and mocking the way we are obsessed with an evolving popular culture. I think, perhaps, it is all of these things and more that makes this album so special.
Each song on this album is diverse and eclectic from the Caribbean-feel instruments in "Ride Across The River" to the sax in "Your Last Trick". Then there are the much-used synthisers in songs such as "Money For Nothing", and "Walk Of Life". Who but Mark Knopfler could write an album in the Caribbean filled with such desolation, war, love gone wrong and the blues?
Article comments
1 - Clint
A Google alert brought me here. I had the same experience with Bros. in Arms. My family owned an upscale audio/video store at the time, and I came close to getting Bros. in Arms banned in the store. And it wasn't the more popular songs the struck me the most. I didn't care much for Money for Nothing, in fact, at the time, preferring Your Latest Trick and Brothers in Arms as favorites. I'd turn the lights off and listen to the title track on our $20,000 reference system in the dark. Will always carry that memory with me. (Though I was under the impression that it was the American Civil War to which the song referred. Don't know really, and don't care.)
2 - jmac76
I'm pretty sure it's an ode to Scotland (I remembering reading it somewhere or another). But I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way about Brothers in Arms. I just can't believe that feeling has stuck with me after all these years.
I guess it shows that the best musicians/bands are the ones that have a lasting impression on you.
3 - JC Mosquito
I preferred Making Movies.
4 - s. meadows
I'll never forget driving home from one of those laser light shows at the local planetarium, VERY late at night. The downtown streets were empty and as we were driving around playing Brothers In Arms, 'Your Latest Trick' came on. It was one of those perfect-song-at-the-perfect-time moments that burns itself in your memory forever, and Brothers...was full of them. My faves were also the lesser-known tracks that weren't big hits, especially Latest Trick, Why Worry and Brothers in Arms.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Not long ago, someone made a photo-tribute to the soldiers fighting in Lebanon last year using the song "Brothers in Arms" as a background.
6 - TuneDelicious
Actually most of the "war" songs on this album are referencing El Salvador's and Nicaragua's guerilla wars in the 80s, not Scotland.