Dire Straits

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It took me a lot of years to dive into the back catalogue of Dire Straits and I have to admit, I have missed out on a lot of great music. The band's sound was characterized by Mark Knopfler's intricate guitar solos and storytelling lyrics. The single hit the top ten spot on both sides of the Atlantic and the album itself made waves in European album charts. I have a mental list of groups to make my way through and after so many years, i finally reached Dire Straits. Dire Straits also have sold over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists in the world.I have an older stereo system that was meant to play records and this is a wonderful sounding record.

Indeed, for the album ‘Brothers in Arms,’ we were one of the first bands to use the sparkling new DASH digital system on the Sony 3324, 24-track machine, with 24 tracks on half-inch tape. When I heard the unmistakable voice of Phil Lynott in the encores, it nearly knocked me off my chair.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The first single released was " Sultans of Swing" which first broke into the United States top five early in the spring of 1979, becoming a hit a full five months after the album was released there, and then reached number eight in the UK Singles Chart. It obviously does not take up as much room as 6CD in jewel cases but a bit more attention to detail on the packaging would have been nice. The album reached the top of the album charts in Germany, Australia and France, number 2 in the United States and number 5 in the United Kingdom. There were also instances where some mics weren’t even recorded, as in the case of ‘Sultans Of Swing’ 1992, where one of the drum overheads was mysteriously absent on every night.

This debut album shows strong continuity with the fine solo albums Knopfler has produced since the break-up of Dire Straits in the mid-1990s.

But for the money and if you are new to the band or just want to have all the albums in one place this is a bargain set. Thankfully, modern audio plug-in tech is so accurate that a lot of the original plates and delays can be faithfully recreated, such as the unique AMS delays and even the Ursa Major Space Station multi-tap delay of which the band was so fond back in the day. This was finally rectified when I was found myself chatting with Pick Withers at a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame event at Abbey Road Studios in London.