Released on 17 May 1985 "Brothers In Arms" was the fifth studio album by the British rock band Dire Straits. It was the first album in history to sell over one million copies in CD format. Brothers in Arms spent a total of 14 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart (including ten consecutive weeks between 18 January and 22 March 1986), nine weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States and 34 weeks at number one on the Australian Albums Chart. It was the first album to be certified ten-times platinum in the UK. It is certified nine-times platinum in the United States and is one of the world's best-selling albums, having sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
The album won a Grammy Award in 1986 for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and Best British Album at the 1987 Brit Awards. The album spawned five singles "So Far Away", "Money For Nothing", "Walk Of Life", "Brothers In Arms", & "Your Latest Trick".
Brothers in Arms was recorded from November 1984 to February 1985 at AIR Studios on the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. The album was produced by songwriter Mark Knopfler and Neil Dorfsman, who had engineered Dire Straits' 1982 album Love over Gold
Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine.
The decision to move to digital recording came from Knopfler's constant
striving for better sound quality. "One of the things that I totally
respected about him," Dorfsman observed, "was his interest in technology
as a means of improving his music. He was always willing to spend on
high-quality equipment." Before arriving at Montserrat, Knopfler had written all the songs
and rehearsed them with the band. The studio lineup was Knopfler
(vocals, guitar), John Illsley (bass, backing vocals), Hal Lindes (guitar), Alan Clark (piano, organ), Terry Williams (drums) and new member Guy Fletcher (synthesisers, backing vocals). Lindes left the band early on in the sessions, and was replaced in December 1984 by Jack Sonni,
a New York guitarist and longstanding friend of Knopfler. (Sonni's only
contribution to the album was the guitar synthesiser on "The Man's Too
Strong", with all the other guitar parts played by Knopfler).
During the recording of "Money for Nothing",
the signature sound of Knopfler's guitar may have been enhanced by a
"happy accident" of microphone placement. Knopfler was using his Gibson Les Paul going through a Laney amplifier. While setting up the guitar amplifier microphones in an effort to get the "ZZ Top
sound" that Knopfler sought, guitar tech Ron Eve, who was in the
control room, heard the "amazing" sound before Dorfsman was finished
arranging the mics. "One mic was pointing down at the floor," Dorfsman
remembered, "another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere
else, and it wasn't how I would want to set things up—it was probably
just left from the night before, when I'd been preparing things for the
next day and had not really finished the setup." What they heard was exactly what ended up on the record; no additional processing or effects were used during the mix.
Brothers in Arms has been described musically as a pop rock album. The music video for "Money for Nothing" received heavy rotation on MTV, and it was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987. It is one of only two Dire Straits songs on a studio album not to be
solely credited to Knopfler (the other being "The Carousel Waltz", which
opens Making Movies), with guest vocalist Sting
given a co-writing credit due to the melody of the repeated "I want my
MTV" (sung by Sting) at the start echoing the melody of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me".
"Walk of Life" was a number two hit in the UK Singles Chart in early 1986 and a number seven hit in the US Billboard Hot 100 later that year. The song was nearly left off the album, but was included after the band out-voted producer Neil Dorfsman. On the second side of the album, three songs ("Ride Across the River", "The Man's Too Strong" and "Brothers in Arms")
are lyrically focused on militarism. "Ride Across the River" uses
immersive Latin American imagery, accompanied by synthesized pan flute,
mariachi trumpet, a reggae-influenced drum part and eerie background
noises. "The Man's Too Strong" depicts the character of an ancient
soldier (or war criminal) and his fear of showing feelings as a
weakness. Written during the 1982 Falklands War, "Brothers in Arms" deals with the senselessness of war.
Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums directed at the CD market, and it was a full digital recording (DDD) at a time when most popular music was recorded on analog equipment. It was also released on vinyl (abridged to fit on one LP) and cassette.
Producer Neil Dorfsman says the digital multitrack was mixed on a Solid
State Logic analog board, with the resulting two track mix re-digitized
via a Prism A/D converter and recorded on a DAT machine.
Brothers in Arms was the first album to sell one million copies in the CD format and to outsell its LP version. Rykodisc
co-founder Rob Simonds subsequently wrote, "[In 1985] we were fighting
to get our CDs manufactured because the entire worldwide manufacturing
capacity was overwhelmed by demand for a single rock title (Dire
Straits' Brothers in Arms)."
Despite the initial reviews of Brothers in Arms from the UK music press in 1985 were generally negative due its mawkish self-pity, his lugubriously mannered appropriation of rockin' Americana,
his thumpingly crass attempts at wit", also accused the album of the
"tritest would-be melodies in history, the last word in tranquilising
chord changes, the most cloying lonesome playing and ultimate in
transparently fake troubador sentiment ever to ooze out of a
million-dollar recording studio", other critics were different especially in the States praising Knopfler's guitar work and noted that, also the album were "carefully crafted" effort, writing, nd beautifully produced, with Mark Knopfler's terrific guitar work
catching the best light, in the decades to come, the critics changed praising the work here especially with the track "Brothers In Arms" a phenomenon on every level... a suite of Knopfler's very fine brand of JJ Cale-lite".
Brothers In Arms Track List:
1. So Far Away
2. Money For Nothing
3. Walk Of Life
4. Your Latest Trick
5. Why Worry
6. Ride Across The River
7. The Man's Too Strong
8. One World
9. Brothers In Arms
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