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(The public apparently thought as much as well, since the disc failed to yield a hit single nearly as sizable as “Sultans of Swing” had been.) But, by-the-numbers though it can seem for much of its running time, it still makes for a perfectly pleasant sophomore outing, and cuts like “Lady Writer,” “Where Do You Think You’re Going?,” “Once Upon a Time in the West” and “Portobello Belle” tend to be quite underrated in the band’s canon.īrothers in Arms may have been the much bigger commercial success (unlike that album, or the band’s self-titled debut, for that matter, there are no Top 40 hits contained here), but you could actually make a very solid case for the cinematic Making Movies – co-produced with future music mogul Jimmy Iovine and featuring the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan on keyboards – being the best album from start to finish that Dire Straits ever made. Essentially, Communique is simply a continuation of Dire Straits but with slightly less memorable songs.
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But it’s also an easy album to absent-mindedly overlook, if only because it’s the only one of the band’s five albums between 19 that doesn’t deviate in any significant way from the album that precedes it. Occasionally dismissed as the band’s weakest album, Communique (produced by the legendary Jerry Wexler and Muscle Schoals session great Barry Beckett) is actually still reasonably good and is certainly a more vital purchase than On Every Street. Nothing else here is quite as famous as that single, but it’s all very good – particularly “Down to the Waterline,” “Setting Me Up,” and “Water of Love” – and the album works well enough as a whole that little here feels like blatant filler.
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Mark Knopfler’s lyrical voice is already in full flourish here (as is his ever-distinctive style as a lead guitarist), and the poetic “Sultans of Swing” in particular gallops along with such Dylan-like confidence, it’s little wonder that the folk legend himself would be moved to work with Knopfler repeatedly in the coming years (even going so far as to have the Dire Straits frontman produce Infidels).
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Cale – but one that was a little less beholden to roots-rock and blues music than your average British bar band (they’re certainly not as rockabilly-oriented as, say, Rockpile) and not immune to the influences of folk, country, and even jazz – so it’s quite fitting that their sound should arrive fully-formed on this, their self-titled debut, helmed by former Spencer Davis Group bassist Muff Winwood. Dire Straits was never an especially easy band to categorize – they were a pub-rock band, to be sure, and one that owed a great deal to the laid-back grooves of J.J.