Dire Straits — Dire Straits (first album)
album review

LYRICS FROM "SULTANS OF SWING"
A crowd of young boys, they're fooling around in the corner—
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles.
They don't give a damn
About any trumpet-playin' band;
It ain't what they call rock and roll.
And the Sultans—yeah, the Sultans play Creole . . .

And then the man, he steps right up to the microphone
And says at last just as the time bell rings:
"Good night, now it's time to go home,"
And he make it fast with one more thing:
"We are the Sultans of Swing" . . .

Album Review: When Dire Straits came on the scene in 1978 with their first album, they presented the world with a sound it had never heard before. This was partly due to Mark Knopfler's original, signature guitar sound, but it also had to do with the fact that the band successfully merged elements of blues, jazz, rock, and pop to give Dire Straits a very fresh sound. Their first album offers a set of nine songs, including the huge hit, "Sultans of Swing," with its impossibly cool guitar lines. "Down to the Water Line," another monster track on the album, starts out with a spooky sound and then breaks into rolling, tightly played music with inspired lyrics and some of the best singing Mark Knopfler ever did. This song is a glimpse of the masterful work Dire Straits would do much more of on their third album, Making Movies. "Water of Love" lopes comfortably along on the power of gentle guitar playing and drumming, exploring the desert of failed romance. "Lions," "Six Blade Knife" and "Wild West End" all have a relaxed, bluesish, haunted feeling, with Knopfler punctuating the songs with unique guitar licks throughout. The remaining songs are all decent efforts—much better than filler, though not quite as inspired as Dire Straits' most memorable songs. Overall, this first album from Dire Straits contains some of their best work. Its generally laid-back feel makes it less pop-oriented than Dire Straits' last couple of albums in the 1980s, which helps make this album stand out.

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