The 1985 Project Part 20: Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms

No album released in 1985 has sold more copies than this one

Once again we take a look at an album from 1985, this one coming in 20th in that year’s Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll. This sort of thing goes on every Monday round here.

Obviously, this record is way too long. I can think of two effective methods to shorten it. One would be to unilaterally cut 30% of the time off each song that runs more than 4:12. Six of the seven songs above that length have extended sections where nothing happens, long vamps sustaining the mood but adding little to the experience. Yes, the title track would suffer, but let’s turn to the second method.

This is how I did it in 1985. I simply didn’t ever listen to the last four songs on the album (aka Side 2). Again, you miss out on the title track, which is the best of the four, but it isn’t such a great track that I felt I made an important discovery checking it out for perhaps the second time in my life this morning.

I just looked it up, and the LP I owned at the time is shorter than the CD version by almost a full eight minutes. So a good chunk of the editing has already been done. Chop another seven minutes here and there, and you’ve got a much sharper record.

It’s easy to forget how enormous Dire Straits was that year. Brothers in Arms was the number one album in the US for nine straight weeks. It has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, and was the first CD to sell one million copies. The crystal clean production probably was perfect for enticing people to buy their first CD players. Of course, most CDs of that time were too dang shiny sounding. I’ve only ever heard the original LP and the remastered CD, so I can’t say for sure, but I suspect there would be parts of this record that could have driven me mad if I’d heard the original digital version.

I suppose you’re wondering if I think this record is any good after all this time. It’s okay. It has its charms. “Walk of Life” is fairly delightful, and I just realized that Mark Knopfler was possibly trying to channel Bruce Springsteen’s contemporary sound. There is that keyboard riff that could have been conjured up by Danny Federici, and the song is celebrating a passionate connection to rock’n’roll.

“So Far Away” and “Why Worry” are lovely, albeit too long meditations with sweet guitar riffs. “Your Latest Trick” works well with the saxophone and trumpet parts provided by none other than Randy and Michael Brecker respectively. There’s nothing really memorable on side two, but the songs are pleasant enough.

Which leaves “Money For Nothing.” Knopfler’s attempt to write an ironic take on consumer culture and its effect on popular music wound up being the song that broke him on MTV. There is Sting, newly separated from the Police, chanting the slogan of that TV station, and joining Knopfler on the chorus about microwave ovens and color TVs. The song is clearly meant to be in the voice of a character who is not Knopfler himself. He’s invented a philistine common man who thinks there’s no skill involved in making music, and that people are paying out money and sexual favors for something that isn’t any more necessary than the status symbols of technology. Okay, it’s catchy, and a little bit funny.

But then there is the third verse. You know, the one with the f-word. And I’m not talking about “fuck.” It’s a worse f-word than that. Yes, Knopfler’s imagined character would probably use that slur in that way. But in a pop song, the slur takes over, and the ironic distance goes away, and it just sounds like hate. Because he sings it over such a bouncy, exuberant beat, it’s easy to forget that he's not endorsing the opinions of the character in the song. I remember that word being so common in everyday speech. I’m glad it’s gone. And it stings (sorry, can’t resist!) to hear it in a song I’m listening to in 2025.

Dire Straits effectively broke up after the enormous world tour they undertook in support of this album. They did release one more album in 1991, which was billed as a reunion, and I’m not sure I ever even heard On Every Street. I have enjoyed some of Knopfler’s solo work, and very much enjoyed the one time I got to see him live maybe fifteen years ago. I still think Making Movies was the best thing he and the band ever did.

I’ll rate this one 7 out of 10.