When Dire Straits swept the world: Anatomy of a group devoured by success

When Dire Straits swept the world: Anatomy of a group devoured by success ‘Brothers in Arms,’ the album that consolidated and ended the band, turns 40 and is being reissued as a luxury item. Its legacy still resonates on platforms like Spotify, but a massive tour and an overly classic sound divided (and still divides) critics “I heard Dire Straits and Chris Rea are getting together. Do you know what the band’s name is going to be? Dire Rea!” The joke went viral online a few years ago and is indicative of the discredit or mockery that Mark Knopfler’s band currently inspires in the eyes of many.

Although other trends from the 1980s have been revived or vindicated, there still seems to be a certain resistance to dignifying a band that, since the 1990s, has become the epitome of exhibitionist rock and terrible esthetics. However, 40 years ago, Dire Straits was the most popular rock group in the world. “At that time, he was a presence that was hard to escape; it seemed like everyone liked him,” recalls music journalist César Luquero, currently editor-in-chief of Rockdelux .



“I had friends who were quite taken with him and would explain that Mark Knopfler played without a pick and all that. He was a guitar hero, atypical if you will, but a hero nonetheless. You heard his songs on the radio, they were played at town festivals, they were played in bars, and they were a shared taste of the moment, along with other bands and artists on whom there seemed to be a consensus, like Bruce Springsteen , U2, Queen, and the Police .

” When they began recording Brothers in Arms , Dire Straits were already a hugely popular band worldwide. In fact, they became so automatically in 1978, when they released Sultans of Swing . The band was born at the same time as the punk explosion, but they always remained on the fringes of that movement, which, in reality, had an influence on other levels, but not in sales.

The rock groups that really took off at that time were the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac , Boston, Meat Loaf, and other classic-tinged American bands. Mark Knopfler, the undisputed leader of Dire Straits, also opted for that kind of classicism, with a more adult vocation. There was no youthful rebellion in him, nor did he need it.

And, by age, it didn’t suit him either: he was already 28 when he formed the band. Their first four albums were commercial and critical successes, culminating in 1984 with the live album Alchemy . During this time, the Scottish musician also became a sought-after soundtrack composer and producer, working for his beloved Bob Dylan on Infidels , as well as for bands with an alternative pedigree like Aztec Camera.

However, the big hit was Private Dancer , the song he composed for Tina Turner and included on the album of the same name that revived the singer’s career. It was at this time, when everything Mark Knopfler touched seemed to turn to gold, that the group locked themselves in producer George Martin ’s studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat to record what was to be their first album in three years. Preceded by the single So Far Away , which had been released a month earlier, Brothers In Arms hit stores on May 17, 1985, and became an instant bestseller, eventually selling 30 million copies.

It was the best-selling album of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, stayed at number 1 for 34 weeks in Australia, and broke chart records (over 1,100 weeks without leaving the top 50 in Australia). The second and third singles ( Money For Nothing and Walk Of Life ) were primarily responsible for the popular fervor. The third single, with an incredibly catchy melody, had a resemblance to Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen (their biggest rival in stadium rock and radio that summer).

As for the latter, avoiding the controversy over the language used, it cleverly exploited what it was supposedly mocking. Written from observation, it was inspired by the dialogues between two employees at an appliance store that Knopfler had entered. Upon seeing a music video on the television screen, one of them, frustrated, said to the other: “Now look at them yo-yos/ That’s the way you do it/ You play the guitar on the MTV/ That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it/ Money for nothing and your chicks for free.

” A success of Money For Nothing , in addition to its equally catchy guitar riff and melody, was Sting’s vocal appearance to mock the mockery. The Police frontman ended by singing a line from his song Don’t Stand So Close To Me , but changed it to “I want my MTV.” He wanted it and he got it, because the video played nonstop on the then-nascent music network .

Not only that: when MTV Europe launched on August 1, 1987, that was the first clip they aired. But behind the banter, on the B-side, lay a melancholic album with an anti-war spirit. The title track and closing track, released as the fourth single, was composed by Knopfler during the Falklands War in 1982 and is narrated from the perspective of a soldier about to die on the battlefield.

Its impact has been so great that it’s one of the most frequently played songs at military funerals, and in 2007, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina, the musician re-recorded it to raise funds for veterans of that war . It wasn’t the only one. On The Man’s Too Strong , he played the role of a war criminal approaching old age.

According to Knopfler himself (the son of a Hungarian Jew who went into exile in Scotland during the Nazi era), the song “is a study in guilt, hatred, and fear.” Ride Across The River , another track, is narrated, more cynically, through the voices of two soldiers: one considers himself a freedom fighter, defending an ideal of justice; while the other is a mercenary who doesn’t care who he’s going to kill or for whose benefit; and it ends up being a rebuttal to wars of all colors. But that subtext was somewhat hidden in favor of the A-side and its festive assault on stadium rock glory.

The Brothers In Arms Tour, in fact, also broke all kinds of records. It kicked off in the city of Split (then part of Yugoslavia) on April 25, 1985, weeks before the album’s release, and consisted of 248 concerts in 118 cities across 23 countries. In Sydney, Australia, they still hold the record for the most consecutive concerts (they played 21 nights as the tour finale), and in London, they paused their 13-night run at Wembley Arena to participate in the massive Live Aid festival.

In total, they sold more than two and a half million tickets, although their visit to Spain is not remembered as brilliantly. The band played in Bilbao on June 1, 1985, in Madrid on June 3, and in Barcelona on June 5 and 6. However, critics displayed a certain coldness towards the excessive correctness/perfection and lack of capacity for surprise on the part of the group, while lamenting the lack of professionalism with which major concerts were still organized in Spain at that time.

The truly great paradox of Dire Straits’ career is that, in the 1980s, they were one of the groups that represented rock authenticity in the face of the supposed artificiality of technopop, yet at the same time they were skillful pioneers in the use of new technologies in the recording industry. Probably the greatest significance of Brothers in Arms lies in the fact that it was the first mass-marketed pop-rock compact disc. It was recorded entirely digitally and was used by Philips in hi-fi stores as a test CD to demonstrate what the new format would sound like.

Musically, it was also adapted to its length. While the vinyl record lasted around 46 minutes, the CD included slightly longer versions of most of the songs, reaching over 55 minutes in total. It was the first CD to sell over a million copies (at twice the price of an LP at the time), and Brothers in Arms (the song) was the first CD single to be released.

It wasn’t so much imposed by his record label as an idea shared by Knopfler himself, who was obsessed with achieving a higher-quality, cleaner, and more perfect sound. To celebrate the album’s 40th anniversary, Universal Music has doubled down by announcing a special reissue in several formats: vinyl LP, a five-LP deluxe edition, and a three-CD deluxe edition, adding the complete recording of the band’s concert in San Antonio, USA. César Luquero maintains that it’s an album that stands the test of time well.

“At the end of the day, it’s a group with a pub-rock tradition that chose to maintain a classic sound even in the atrocious eighties, and I think that allows us to listen to the albums today without it jarring us, and to appreciate that, despite how conventional they may sound, they’ve been well preserved. They made very accessible music, even with a certain patina of distinction, I’d say. They’re an old-young group by definition, and from the very beginning, so they don’t age badly, they just get older.

” Dire Straits were on top of the world by the end of their tour in April 1986, but also exhausted and weary. After a special performance with Eric Clapton on rhythm guitar at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday concert at Wembley, Mark Knopfler announced the dissolution of Dire Straits in September 1988. “A lot of the media were saying we were the biggest band in the world.

Back then, the emphasis wasn’t on music, it was on popularity. I needed a break,” Knopfler told Rolling Stone . It’s true that his wasn’t a band prone to playing celebrity: they aren’t known to gossip about sex or drugs, and it’s reasonable to think they would have felt uncomfortable attracting so much attention.

“Success is great, but fame is something you don’t really want. I had a great time while it lasted, until it got so big that we doubled the touring equipment, and I didn’t know all the roadies anymore,” Knopfler would say years later. In a 2024 interview with EL PAÍS, the musician explained: “I was used to observing the world and writing about things that caught my attention.

And suddenly, you get the impression that the world is watching you.” Despite all this, in 1991, Dire Straits tried again. They recorded a sixth album, On Every Street , and embarked on an even more ambitious world tour than the previous one, with 216 concerts, but in larger venues, and attended by seven million people.

They sold around eight million records, a considerable figure, but there was a sense that the group had lost its rhythm. “ On Every Street came out in September 1991, almost at the same time as Nevermind by Nirvana , Ten by Pearl Jam, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub, the Black Album by Metallica or the last good album by the Pixies, Trompe Le Monde , just to name a few,” recalls César Luquero. “That year also saw the release of some masterpieces from the golden age of hip hop .

There was a lot of competition in the younger segment of the market; I think it was already on a different path. Plus, the album was a bit of a mess, in my opinion, with less spark and a lot of filler. Since CDs held more information, some albums were too long back then, so perhaps what had helped them with Brothers In Arms worked against them here.

They couldn’t surpass the previous album or keep the group together, because by then Mark Knopfler had already established a track record making soundtracks. He’d also recorded a roots album with his side group The Notting Hillbillies and another with his hero Chet Atkins, and from what I’ve seen, he didn’t miss fronting a group that had become so huge.” “The last tour was an absolute disaster.

Whatever spirit of the times we had been a part of had passed,” the band’s manager, Ed Bicknell, told Classic Rock magazine, while bassist John Illsley added that “personal relationships were in crisis, and that put a terrible strain on everyone, both emotionally and physically. It changed us.” The final shows of Dire Straits’ career were, incidentally, in Spain: on October 9, 1992, they played at the Estadio de La Romareda in Zaragoza.

They hung up their boots there and never returned to the stage. Since then, there has been evidence that the band has received lucrative offers to reunite, but Mark Knopfler has always settled the matter, making it clear that it will never happen. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition Tu suscripción se está usando en otro dispositivo ¿Quieres añadir otro usuario a tu suscripción? Si continúas leyendo en este dispositivo, no se podrá leer en el otro.

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