Dire Straits

This is Mark Knopfler's version of Springsteen's "Darkness At the Edge of Town" but he stretches out the thematically bleak songs with extended instrumental solos. This was huge in the U.K., where it was the rare mainstream rock album – like Pink Floyd's Final Cut -- that echoed the British public's confusion at Thatcher's economic policies.

Love Over Gold is not just the title of Dire Straits' fourth album, it is a statement of purpose.
In almost suicidal defiance of commercial good sense, singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark
Knopfler has chosen to follow his muse, fashioning a collection of radically expanded epics
and evocative tone poems that demand the listener's undivided attention. Certainly a
quantum leap from the organic R&B impressionism of the band's early LPs (Dire Str... More >

I admit that Mark Knopfler is a classy enough guitarist and producer to entice me into his nostalgic obsessions: at its best "Telegraph Road" sounds like supernal Mark-Almond, and the cheesy organ on "Industrial Disease" betrays a sense of humor. But the portentous arrangements on the other three cuts (right, that makes five, mean length 8:24) suggest nothing so much as ELP with blues roots. And Knopfler's sarcastic impression of a Harley Street M.D. on the very same "Industrial Disease" leaves no doubt that even his sense of humor is pompous. (Grade - C+)