Brothers in Arms

Never been a big Dire Straits fan. Now, I'll admit "Money For Nothing" is a fantastic track. Also, "Walk of Life" is catchy as hell. I don't really vibe with anything else, though. Rest of the album is a bit of a soft-rock snoozefest.

If a band of talented musicians took a bunch of quaaludes while listening to Pink Floyd and then decided to start recording, this is the result. The first couple of songs are upbeat because the drugs take time to start up, but when they kick in, boy can you feel it.

Et album som har gått fra å føles som plikt til å faktisk være ganske fornøyelig. Jeg har gått gjennom CD-samlingen for å bedømme hvem som skal få være og hvem som må gå, og Brothers in Arms fikk være. Det er til tider ganske pompøst og tacky, men det føles som en helhetlig plate. De lange låtene gjør det til et progalbum i guess?

Når tittelsporet kommer på radioen er det kjipt, men når man er innstilt på et album er det plutselig en spennende avslutning. «Walk of Life» er fortsatt danseband, men «The Man’s Too Strong» har jeg aldri lagt merke til på den måten. Album redeemed

Good, consistently solid rock that breezes by in the ears. Fun times all round and full marks from me.

Everyone keeps calling it dad rock, but this is peak uncle new wave. Songs like a Geordie Springsteen and the crispiest guitar leads of the 80s. Kind of sags in the middle.

This album will feature in my new book: “Albums your Dad insists are among the best of all time but are actually mediocre at best”

The 8th best selling album ever in the UK.

The first ‘big’ album to be recorded digitally for the CD market

Won a bunch of awards.

Wildly overrated.

This has a few goofy bits (Walk of Life, Ride Across the River), and some 80s cheese, but it's still a really solid album. Mark Knopfler's guitar playing is excellent.

I thought Brothers In Arms was a pretty solid album. It feels very similar to the last album i did by Dire Straits (from what i can remember, it was quite a while ago) but this one definitely shows that it is from 1985 by having all those synths which were very prominent in most albums during this time. I personally thought that the country rock stuff from the self-titled album definitely worked better for Dire Straits but this one works as well with it as it can. The lyrics were kinda a mixed bag though as sometimes they could be pretty smart but other times could be pretty offensive. I think that their self-titled record is better but this album is still a decent listen.
Best Song: The Man's Too Strong
Worst Song: Money For Nothing

Pre Listen:
I listened to this album once a long time ago. I remember Money for Nothing, and I remember somewhat disliking the album. I haven't listened to much Dire Straits since, so I'm going in to this with minimal expectations.

Notable Tracks:
Money for Nothing - Yup, certified classic, banger. Adding it to my playli- wait hang on. He can't say that word. MFW Dire "Straights" or something.
Walk of Life - Completely forgot this was one of their songs. Another certified classic, a real foot tapper.
Why Worry - Snoozefest, least favorite song on the album.
One World - Honestly sort of a hidden gem. Very funky, my favorite on the album.

Post Listen:
I enjoyed this album a lot more than I remembered, a lot of the lead guitar and keyboard work remind me of Pink Floyd. While it was better than I remembered, the album frustrates me somewhat. I think this band is at it's strongest with faster paced groove and vibe sort of songs, songs you can bop to. The fact this album then is mostly slower songs hurts.

It feels like the musical equivalent of going up to a dog, hyping it up by jumping around and acting manic, then immediately leaving it alone in a room. I'm the dog, and I'm left confused and wanting more of that hype. I give it a 3/5.

A very strong album. Mark Knopfler combines a fantastic band with his excellent singing, songwriting, and guitar playing to make a really enjoyable listening experience. The album lost a bit of its energy in the middle, but the very strong start & finish bring the goods.

a victim of 80s soft rock bloat, but one of the strongest three song starts ever.

"Hey I know that song" - me about 5 times. Other than that, this album did nothing for me. The songs dragged on for too long and were never great to begin with.

mid. points lost for wasting the sick band name that is dire straits

f slur wasn’t necessary

Brothers in Arms is one of those slbums that feels like its always been part of my life. My dad loved those album and therefore it soundtracked many a car journey. It was also part of one of my GCSEs and is an album that I continue to listen to periodically.

I know critics will point to Knopfler’s vocals being nasally, but they just work so well with their music.
‘So Far Away’ is s great opener and has a great groove to it…and that guitar just makes me smile.

You cannot disike ‘money for nothing’ or ‘walk of life’ they are both timeless classics, even though Sting has gone firmly from singing about the future to the past (RIP MTV). Both these songs really show off Knopfler’s wondrous geetar playing, this guys not dumb. I do however still get confused about what needed installing with a microwave.

I love the guitar intro to ‘why worry?’ and is s genuinely relaxing sound, suiting Knopfler’s vocal perfectly.
‘Ride across the river’ is a little too long and doesn’t reach the heights of the rest of the album, despite some obvious great guitar.

‘The man’s too strong’ quickly gets things back on strong though with more of a gunslinger country feel to it (see Notting Hillbillies)

For me the title track of this has always been the star. Its dark brooding majesty is just sublime.

It seems we're never too far away from 'albums my parents played a ton when I was a kid' during this project. This is one I remember pretty well compared to many others though.

I think there are some truly great rock songs on this album. I haven't listened to it in probably 25 years, but I remembered so many of the lyrics and was tapping my foot the whole way through. I even quite like the ballad Why Worry despite it being three times longer than it needs to be.

Away from the singles (all of which are great) I think I like The Man's Too Strong best due to the whole 'quiet, quiet, LOUD, quiet, quiet' thing it's got going on.

Thinking about the score for this I found it really hard to pick between a 4 and a 5, at least partially because the singles are such standout tracks that it's difficult for the rest to compete. On balance I think I'm settling on a:

4/5

Hell Yeah, Brother.

This album is like the soundtrack of a bustling, busy city in the 90s

Well!! My second dire straits album. And wow they’re way less cool now! I mean the concept isn’t necessarily bad, so far away alone should justify the switch to this softer, poppier rock landscape, but the second I saw the genre tags I knew this wasn’t going to surpass their debut (which, fun fact, was the first album I ever got on this site, which I awarded a 9.7/10, or on this site’s more restrictive rating scale, a 5/5). Money for nothing is cool but then mark says the f-slur so it’s less cool. He also tries to have this swagger that he just cannot pull off realistically. Actually his voice is pretty annoying throughout this whole thing, like really annoying. Also why is every song like a billion years long? This thing is fifty-five whole minutes. It should not be that long. I don’t even know the point of this. In fact I don’t even think this is a good album. There’s one actually good song and everything else is worthless.
5.2/10

I'm sorry that you don't understand how characters work.